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LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

PRINCETON, N. J.

Purchased by the
Mrs. Robert Lenox Kennedy Church History Fund.

BV 110 .L48 1888

Lewis, Abram Herbert, 1836-

1908.
Biblical teachings

concerning the Sabbath and

--^xH r

i- 1 fiii

v^ '^^'

BIBLICAL TEACHmaS^'^^ 9 " 1926^

CONCEKNIXG

THE SABBATH

AND

THE SUNDAY,

A. h/lEWIS, D. D.

AXJTHOB OF " SaBBATEI AND SUNDAY, ABGUMENT AND HISTORY " ; " A CRITICAL HISTORY

OF THE Sabbath and The Sunday, in the Christian Church;' "A Critical

History of Sunday Legislation from 321 to 1888, A. D. ;" "The

Seventh-day Baptist Hand Book." Editor of " The Outlook

and Sabbath Quarterly," and of " The Light of Home. "

TO WHICH IS ADDED AN IMPORTANT CHAPTER ON
"THE ORIGIN OF THE WEEK."

^Econti iStiition, Eebi3£ti,

THE AMERICAN SABBATH TBACT SOCIETY

ALFRED CENTRE, N. Y.

1888.

PREFACE.

In 1870 the author of the following pages issued
a work entitled '' The Sabbath and the Sunday,
Argument and History." The favorable reception
granted to that volume, and the increasing agita-
tion concerning the Sabbath question in the United
States, led to the issue of three other volumes, as
follows: The first edition of this book in 1884;
" A Critical History of the Sabbath and the Sunday
in The Christian Church," a larger volume, which
embodies the history of the theories and practices
relative to both days; in 1886, "A Critical History
of Sunday Legislation, from A. D. 321 to 1888," which
appeared in March, 1888.

The second edition of this book appears at a time
when the agitation of the Sabbath question is more
wide-spread and intense than at any previous time in
our national history. The popular tendency is to
avoid a direct appeal to the Word of God in the set-
tlement of the question. There is also a persistent
but most unscholarly effort made in certain circles
to avoid the claims of the Sabbath as against the
Sunday, by asserting that the week is an uncertain
and variable division of time, and that we cannot
attain any definite knowledge as to what day is

PREFACE.

the Sabbath. The following pages exalt the Word
of God as the only rule of faith and practice for Chris-
tian men.

The Sabbath question is larger than any de-
nominational lines. It involves the highest in-
terests and the future destiny of the Christian
Church. The theory which seeks to abolish the
Decalogue, and thus remove the Sabbath, is illog-
ical, deceptive and destructive. Few men profess-
ing to be Christians could urge such a theory
were it not for their desire to avoid the claims
of the Sabbath. The mission of this book is tc
exalt the truth that Calvary glorifies Sinai, but
does not remove it; that faith in Christ establishes
the law of God, but does not make it void.

Truth can afford to wait calmly, while error digs its
own grave. But for the sake of truth we have the
right to demand a candid and earnest investigation
of the Sabbath question- from the Biblical stand-
point. What saith God's Word ? Read thought-
fully, and act in the light of truth and in the pres-
ence of God, from whose eyes neither excuses nor
sophistry can hide the soul.

Plainfield, N. J., June, 1888.

' THE

SABBATH A^^D THE SUNDAY.

CHAPTER I.

A PRIORI ARGUMENT.

The patterns of all things must exist as pure
thoughts in the mind of Jehovah before there can be
any outward creation. These pattern thouglits are
the laws by which the work of creation is developed,
and governed. Therefore "law" in its pure pri-
mary meaning is another name for God's ideal.
Hence no primary law can be abrogated or changed ;
for God's ideals are perfect and absolute. Any
change or abrogation of primary laws must destroy
the creation, or the government which has been de-
veloped according to those laws, and is founded upon
them. Abrogate the law of "gravitation," and the
physical universe is at once destroyed. The same
is true in moral government. Even the disobedience
of a single subject produces discord, and to a certahi
1

2 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

extent, breaks up the order of the government. If
the hiw-making power shall change or abrogate the
laws on which the government rests, the government
is changed or destroyed. It is also a self-evident
truth that all primary laws must antedate the govern-
ment which is based upon them, and all perfect laws
must meet the necessities which grow out of the rela-
tions between the governor and the governed. Obe-
dience on the part of the governed is at once the sign
of fealty, and the means of blessing.

It is befitting to inquire, in the light of the foregoing
principles, whether the Sabbath Law is a primary
law in moral government, or only a temporary en-
actment made with reference to a primary law.

The conmiemorative rest of Jehovah at the close
of his creative work is the first expression of the
Sabbath idea. This rest follows close upon the com-
pletion of the work, as though it were a j^art of the
original pattern. And when it is rememl)ered that
the Sal^bath law meets the demands which grow out
of our relations to God, which relations existed from
the birth of the race, the conclusion is inevitable that
the Sabbath law was a primary, structund law in the
moral universe, and, like all other [)rimary laws, had
its origin in the mind of Jehovah "before the world
was."

A PRIORI ARGUMENT. 3

The idea of God as Creator is the all-embracing
idea. His character as Law-giver, and Redeemer,
flows from the idea of Creator. Fealty to God, as
well as our highest good, demands that we constantly
remember him and our i-elations to him. Hence the
Sabbath law links itself with this all-embracino: idea
of the true God, the maker of heaven and of earth, the
Creator and Redeemer of men, and holds it ever before
us. A law which thus forms the central thread of
communion between the Creator and the creature,
which thus meets the universal demands arising from
our relations to him, which is God's never-ceasing
representative in time, must be as universal and
enduring as the system of which it is a part.

Man is a social as w^ell as a religious being. In
this dual nature the highest motive that can enter
into our relations to each other is, "Love to man."
This unites the race, and linking with "Love to God "
leads us up to him. The universal expression of love
to God is worship. Social worship is, therefore, the
natural result of the highest action of man's dual
nature. But social worship could never become uni-
versal or permanent without a stated and definite
time, fixed by the author of man's nature and the
object of his worship. Illustration ; If a governor
orders an election of oflicers, and appoints no time

4 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

when the election shall be held, there is not only a
want of wisdom in the arrangement, but the election
must be a failure. To say that God did not pre-or-
dain the Sabbath law, as a structural law in moral
government, is to charge the Perfect One with simi-
lar folly.

Thus it is seen that God's relations to his own
work, our relations to him, and our relations to each
other, all combine to show that the Sabbath law
must have been a primary, structural law of the moral
government under w^hich we exist. Being such, it
can only be abrogated by the annulling of all these
relations, and the destruction of the government.

CHAPTER II.

SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENT.

Approaching the Scriptures, we find the funda-
mental facts in exact harmony witli the foregoing a
'priori conclusions. When the Sabbath law appears,
it is linked with the ])eginning of man's experience,
and founded upon the example of Jehovah.

Hence the question arises at the threshold of the
Scriptural argument concerning the Sabbath :

Can the Laic of the SahhafJi and the Day of the
Sabbath be separated? Two points carefully ex-
amined, will answer this question.

(a) Why was the seventh day chosen as the Sab-
bath?

{b) By virtue of what did it become the Sabbath?

{a) God could not commemorate the work of crea-
tion until it was completed. It was not completed
until the close of the sixth day. Hence no day pre-
vious to the seventh could have been chosen as the
Sabbath. Previous to the seventh day creation was
only a " becoming." With the opening of the seventh

6 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

day it sprang into full being. This, therefore, was
creation's birthday, and hence the only day that
could be chosen to commemorate the rest of God from
the completed work of creating. As one cannot
celebrate his birthday on a day earlier or later than
that on which his birth occurred, so Jehovah sancti-
fied the seventh as the only day which could answer
the original idea of the Sabbath law. Therefore the
Sabbath Law and the Sabbath Day designated by its
author are inseparable. Applied to any other day
the- law has no meaning.

(b) The acts of Jehovah by which the seventh day
was consecrated as the Sabbath. God rested on that
day, hence the sacredness arising from his example
can pertain to no other day. God blessed the day
and hallowed it, because he had rested upon it. Thus
the elements of sacredness and of commemorative-
ness are inseparably connected with the day. If the
law be applied to another day, it becomes meaning-
less ; for the law demands a day thus made sacred,
and no other day than the seventh could be made
sacred for those reasons. Nor can the seventh day
cease to be thus sacred, until it shall cease to be a
fact that God rested upon that day and blessed it.
This can never be.

Again, no other day than the seventh can meet the

SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENT. 7

demands of our own natures, since no other day can
keep God in mind through this commemorative
sacredness. Any other day, observed for any reason
not mentioned in the law. has another kmguage —
speaks of other things, and hence cannot speak to
the soul as God designed the Sabbath shoukl speak.
Thus it appears tiiat God chose the seventh day for
good and sufficient reasons, reasons which spring
from the eternal fitness of things, and which co-exist
with our race. Therefore, if there be any Sabbath,
it must he the seventh day. The law centers around
the da//, and is meaningless when applied to any
other. Much is said by certain writers concerning
the " Sabbath institution," as though it were distinct
from the Sabl)ath law and the Sabbath day. A glance
will suflSce to show the illogicalness of such a claim.
An institution io only the outgrowth of organific law.
Refuse or neglect to obey the law the institution is
destroyed. Illustration: During the late "rebell-
ion," the institutions of the United States' govern-
ment ceased to exist w^herever the laws of that
irovernment were disobeved. So he who refuses to
obey the Sabbath law destroys the Sabbath institu-
tion so far as his power extends.

At this point, some readers will raise the query
as to the lenirth of God's creative days, and their

8 - SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

bearing on the question before us. Our answer,
briefly, is this : God's power is infinite, measureless.
His acts, and the time in which he performs them,
are also unmeasurable by us. We apprehend that
the creative week was infinitely longer than our week
of sev^en days of twenty-four hours. But since it
was a week, and since God rested from his work on
the seventh day of that week, and since he command-
ed us to do in our iceeh^ as he did in /a'.s, all difficulty
in the case vanishes. Our week is modeled after
God's by his command. AYe are to do in our sphere
of action after his example in his sphere of action.
The Sabbath law, given by him, demands this, and
the observance of any other day than the seventh
and last day of the week, for any reason, is not obe-
dience to God's law. Finite men, acting in finite
days, do follow the example of an Infinite God, acting
in unmeasured days, if they preserve the same order,
according to his command ; otherwise, they do not.
The second question is : Was the Sabbath Law
knoicn to men before the giving of the Decalogue at
Mount Sinai ? All the arguments presented in a
former chapter, to prove that the Sabbath law is a pri-
mary law, will apply with equal force to the above
question. To those reasons the following may be
added : All the primary relations between God and

SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENT . 9

his creatures existed before the giving of the Deca-
loofue. All the wants of man's nature existed durins:
that time, hence all laws made to meet these rela-
tions and answer these wants must have been co-
existent with the relations and demands. There was
an especial demand for a knowledge of the Sabbath
during this period, as a safeguard against the prevail-
ing tendency to forget God and accept heathenism.
Besides this, God having made the Sabbath sacred
at creation, it could have been no less than sin to pro-
fane it in any time thereafter, and God does not leave
his creatures without the knowledge requisite to
obedience. Hence we must conclude that the Sab-
bath was known before the giving of the law at Sinai.
This conclusion is in harmony with the unanswerable
argument of Paul in the Epistle to the Romans,^ in
which he shows that since sin existed " from Adam to
Moses," therefore the law must have existed, for "Sin
is not imputed where there is no law." Christ pro-
claims the same truth when he teaches the eternal
nature of the law, and the fact that " the Sabbath was
madfe for man, and not man for the Sabbath." ^ In
this Christ clearly indicates that the Sabbath law an-
tedated the race, and was given for the especial ben-

iKomansv. 12 — 15; and iv. 15.
2Markii. 27.

10 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

efit of the race. Hence also his right, as "Lord of
the Sabbath," to indicate how it ought to be observed,
since all things were made by him.

The brief Scriptural record concerning the period
between the creation and the giving of the law con-
firms the foregoing conclusions. In the second
chapter of Genesis, first to fourth verses, we have
the history of the instituting of the Sabbath in the
following words :

"And the heaven and the earth were finished and all
the host of them."

" And on the seventh day God finished his work which
he had made ; and he rested on the seventh day from all
his work which he had made."

"And God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it;
because that in it he rested from all his work w^hich God
created and made.^ "

This fact so full of deep meaning, and inseparable
from the history of creation, could not have been un-
known to Adam and the patriarchs who "walked
with God," and were taught by him. Knowing of
the existence of the Sabbath, they must have known
of its sacredness, and their duty to observe it. The
septenary division of time into weeks was well un-
derstood during the patriarchal age. ^ This knowl-

^ All quotations are from the Revised Version.
2 See Genesis vii. 4—8; 10—12.

SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENT. 11

edge necessitates a knowledge of the Sabbath by
which the weeks are separated.^ But positive tes-
timony is not wanting. The sixteenth chapter of
Exodus shows that the Sabbath was known and ob-
served before the giving of the Decalogue at Sinai,
and that the first special test of obedience which God
made after the Israelites left Egypt was concerning
its observance. The orivinof of the manna occured
on the fifteenth day of the second month, and the
Hebrews did not reach Sinai until some time during
the third month after their departure from Eg\^pt.
In the fourth verse of this 16th of Exodus, it is said
that God told Moses :

" Behold I will rain bread from heaven for j^ou, and the
people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day,
that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law
or no."

This shows that the test of obedience was to be
made in connection with the gathering of the man-
na according to a certain daily rate.

The next verse gives the test, viz. :

'"And it shall come to pass, on the sixth day that they
shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be
twice as much as they gather daily."

1 For collateral testimony showing that the week and the Sab-
bath were known also outside the patriarchal line, testimony
which indicates an universal revelation concerning the week and
the Sabbath at the first, see Appendix A.

12 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

It is plain that the test lay in the voluntary jorep-
arations for the Sabbath on the part of the people ;
for in the sixteenth verse Moses reveals nothing: to
the people except the order to gather the stated por-
tion each day ; and when some would not heed this
order, ^ the manna not only became worthless, but
Moses testified his displeasure at their disobedience.
The people were not ordered to gather a double por-
tion on the sixth day, nor were they at first informed
that the manna should not fall upon the Sabbath.
They were left wholly ignorant on this point in order
that the test of their obedience might be complete.
Hence it is said in the twenty-second verse that when
the sixth day came, and the people voluntarily gath-
ered an extra portion for the Sabbath, the rulers
came at once and told Moses of their apparent diso-
bedience. Then, for the first time, Moses revealed
to them what God had said concerning the test to be
made and told them^ that there should be no manna
on the Sabbath. Nevertheless some went out to seek
for it on the Sabbath, and God rebuked them in a
way, and with a severity, which is wholly inconsist-
ent with the idea that this was their first offense.
He says : ^

''How long refuse ye to keep my command7nents

J 20th verse- " 26th verse. ^ 28th verse.

GIVING THE LAW. 13

and my laws,'' etc. There is no appearance of any-
thing new, or of the introduction of anything before
unknown. The conditions of the test, and the vol-
untary act of the people in preparing for the Sabbath,
show that the law of the Sabbath was well under-
stood b}^ them, and that it had come to them from
the patriarchal age, before their bondage in Egypt.

GIVING THE LAW.

A careful study of the history of the organization
of the Jewish nation reveals the following important
facts :

1. The Decalogue was given first in order of time,
as the embodiment of all moral law, the foundation
of all government.

2. Certain ceremonies were instituted teaching
physical and spiritual purity, offering forgiveness
through faith and obedience, and pointing to a
coming Saviour.

3. Civil and ecclesiastico-civil regulations were
made for the organization of the nation and the en-
forcement of obedience to the laws of the Deca-
logue, which b}^ its nature, and by the circumstances
that attended the giving of it, is shown to be entirely
distinct from the ceremonial and civil regulations.
That nine of these ten laws are eternal is unques-

14 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

tioned. Some are found who claim that the Sabbath
law, embodied in the fourth commandment is cer-
emonial and not moral. If the claim be true, then
God, the infinite in wisdom, placed it where it
did not belong, and so deceived, not only the Israel
ites, but the world. By such misplacement, too, the
ceremonial code was left imperfect, in a very im-
portant particular. It is also an unquestioned fact
that the Jews never deemed the Sabbath law as cer-
emonial. God bases the Sabbath law upon his own
example, and teaches that it finds its beginning and
authority in his acts at the close of the creative
week ; while, if the above claim be true, it was not
commemorative of God and his work, but typical of
Christ. A theory which thus charges God with
ignorance or premeditated deception, or with both,
sinks under the weight of its own inconsistency.

THE TWO COVENANTS.

Before closing this chapter, it is necessary to an-
swer another query which will arise concerning what
are loosely called the Old and the New Covenants.
It is a prominent part of the stock in trade of mod-
ern No-Sabbathists to claim that God made one cov-
enant with the Jews, which was annulled when
Christ came, and that thus the Decalogue, and so

THE TWO COVENANTS. 15

the Sabbath law, were annulled. The confusion
which exists in the popular theories on this point is
great. It arises from a superficial understanding
of the nature of God's government, and the mean-
ing of the term covenant. To clear up this con-
fusion, it is necessary to inquire Avhat the meaning
of covenant is, as used in the Scriptures.

Worcester gives the following excellent definition
of the theological use of the term, viz.: "The
promise of God to man that he shall receive certain
temporal or spiritual blessings upon certain condi-
tions, or upon the performance of the duties pointed
out in the Old and New Testaments."

What was the " old covenant " ? The term cove-
nant occurs first in Gen. vi. 18, in connection with
the building of the Ark ; that covenant was essentially
this : Noah, believing God's word, and building the
Ark, as God directed, should be saved from destruc-
tion. This is the model of all "covenants." Men
are to do a given thing, whereupon God does or
grants certain things, as results. The covenant with
Abraham, Gen. xv., is of the same nature; in this,
God promises to give "This land," etc. (18 v.), to
Abraham's seed, if they obey him. In the 17th
chapter the promise of a great posterity is added.
In all the covenants between individuals, the same

16 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

features appear ; an agreement wherein each has a
part to perform. When the children of Israel
groaned under the bondage in Egypt, God assured
them that he remembered his promise to give them
the land of Canaan. Ex. ii. 24; vi. 4, 5.

In the organizing of the Hel)rew theocracy, after
the exodus, the deeper meaning of covenant comes
out, in what is properly termed the law covenant.
Man is not an independent contracting party, l)ut a
subject who is under obligation to obey whatever
God -may command. Hence, obedience to God's
law is the only way in which man can keep a cove-
nant with God. In Exod. xix. 5, 6, obedience is
the ground on which it is promised that Israel shall
become a " kingdom of priests and an holy nation."
Since the law of God contains the essential terms of
the covenant l)y indicating what ol^edience consists
in, the law is often spoken of as the covenant, by a
common figure, metonymy. This metonymical use
of law, and covenant, is common in Exodus, and in
Deuteronomy. The failure to recognize this use has
led to no little confusion and error, as has also the
fact that the reasons assigned in Deuterononjy why
the Isralites should o])ey the law of God, are spe-
cific, national, and narrow, when compared with the
general and eternal reasons on which the laws of the

THE TWO COVENANTS. 17

Decalogue rest. This covenant concerning the keep-
ing of the Decalogue also included the method l^y
which men might find forgiveness when they had
broken the law, viz., by sacrifices. This was the
method of "administering " the law. In the broad-
est sense, therefore, the "old covenant" included,

(a) The Decalogue, which was the basis of all else.

(b) The ceremonial system through which forgive-
ness of sin might be found in case of the transgres-
sion of the Decalogue.

In order to complete our answer to the query un-
der consideration, we here add : the "new covenant"
was, (a) The same law of God, written in men's
hearts instead of on tables of stone. That is,
changed from an outward restraint to an inward
control ; thus its power was intensified, (b) For-
giveness of sin — the transgression of God's law —
through faith in Christ, and not through ceremonies
and sacrifices.

A common and most hurtful error of our time is
the essential destruction of this new covenant, by
teaching the abrogation of the Decalogue, and hence
the removal of all obligation from men; which, be-
ing done, there can be no covenant, since obedience
is man's part of the covenant. The Epistle to the
Hebrews is referred to by many as teaching such
2

18 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

abrogation of the Decalogue, and hence of the Sab-
bath. Without discussing the authorship of He-
brews, it is pertinent to say that it is not a general
Epistle. It is addressed to a single church, or to a
small group, probably at Alexandria. Those ad-
dressed had accepted Christ as the Messiah, but still
cluns to the ceremonial code as the sfround of for-
giveness and justification. Thus they were sure to
sink back into Judaism, unless they could be brought
to a higher view of faith in Christ, as both Messiah
and Saviour. The first ten chapters of Hebrews
aim to bring about this broader view, and this deep-
er conviction. The argument culminates in the six-
teenth verse of the tenth chapter, wherein the new
covenant shows the law written in men's hearts, and
for«:iveness granted through the blood of Christ.
The argument is not that the law is done away, but
that, under the gospel covenant, men are made free
from the sin resulting from disobedience, through
Christ's sacrificial work, and not through the ofter-
ings whereby forgiveness had been sought under
Judaism.

The same idea is brought out in Paul's second let-
ter to the Corinthians (iii. 2-11). This is often ad-
duced as showing the abrogation of the Decalogue,
whereas the true intent is a comparison of the glory

THE TAVO COVENANTS. 19

of the two methods of administering the law, and find-
ing forgiveness for its transgression. In the sixth
verse, Paul defines the new covenant as based upon
the deeper, spiritual meaning of the law. In the
seventh verse he shows that the law of the Decalogue,
even when written on stones, was glorious, but
when it is written in the heart, and its deeper mean-
ing is understood, it is far more glorious. The
eleventh verse shows that what is specifically spoken
of as being " done away," is the glory which shone
on the face of Moses when the law was given on
Sinai. This represents the glory of the former
method of administering the law, which glory passed
away before the surpassing glory of the gospel
method of administering the same law. It is the
same thought which is set forth in Hebrews, by the
law as written on tables of stone, as less power-
ful than when written in men's hearts by the Holy
Spirit.

Paul to the Romans teaches the same truth in the
most intense manner. The first seven chapters of
Eomans are terrible in the severity with which they
set forth the power of the law of God, the Deca-
logue, whereby comes the knowledge of sin, and its
condemnation. At the same time they set forth
faith in Chris«t as the means of relief from this

20 SABBATH. AXD SUNDAY.

condemnation, throuirli forgiveness. The argument
opens in the 16th verse of the 1st chapter. It reach-
es the climax in the 7th chapter. But lest any should
misapprehend his meaning, Paul draws several clear-
cut conclusions in the course of the argument. He
places the main question at rest, and beyond contro-
versy, in the 3d chapter, 31st verse, "Do we then
make void the law through faith? God forbid.
Yea, we establish the law." The logic of this prop-
osition is unmistakable. Faith is demanded under
the gospel as the means of salvation from sin ; hence
faith establishes the law which convicts of sin. This
is the ]>urden of Paul's argument throughout. "For
by the law is the knowledge of sin ;" "For where no
law is, there is no transgression ;" "But sin is not
imputed where there is no law ;" "What then? shall
we sin l)ecause we are not under the law but under
grace ? God forbid ; " " What shall we say then ?
Is the law sin? God forbid, Nav I had not known
sin but by the law;" "Wherefore the law is holy,
and the commandment holy, and just and good."
Rom. iii. 20 ; iv. 15 ; v. 13 ; vi. 15 ; vii. 7, 12. Such
are the conclusions which Paul scatters through his
argument before he reaches the climax in the seventh
chapter. Please study those chapters, and see that
the whole economy of grace in the gospel is a farce, if

THE TWO COVEXANTS. 21

we attempt to interpret Paul's argument in any other
way. If the Decalogue, ihe only law which can con-
vict of sin, be abrogated by the death of Christ, or
destroyed as a part of the old covenant, then Christ
made it impossible for men to sin or to have a knowl-
edge of sin after that time. Thus he died to redeem
men from that which could not be. To such contradic-
tion does no-lawism come. Paul taught that the law
of God which convicts of sin, the Decalogue, was in
full authority, as a condemning power. AVe have
already seen that the author of Hebrews teaches that
the hiAv is intensified in its authority and power to
condemn, by being written in men's hearts. Thus
Christ who came not to destroy the law, and the
apostle who teaches that it is established, confirmed,
strengthened by faith, agree.

The Decalogue instead of being done away as a part
of the Old Covenant, is the foundation of both cov-
enants, being the rule whereby man is to be guided
in keeping his part of the covenant with God. Upon
the ground of obedience God promised Israel certain
blessings. But in his mercy he also added a 'method
whereby forgiveness might be attained in case of
failure to obey. Under the Jewish economy this was
through the ceremonial system ; under the Gospel it
is through faith in Christ ; under ]>oth systems con-

22 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

fession must precede forgiveness, which must also be
foUowed by a forsaiving of sin in order to continued
acceptance. When Christ came the better method of
finding forgiveness and salvation from sin supersed-
ed that which was more burdensom eand less glorious.
The foundation of both covenants was God's law in
the Decalogue. The difference between the two was
in the method by which men were to find forgiveness
in case of transgression.

CHAPTER III.

TEACHINGS OF CHRIST CONCERNING THE LAW.

Christ is the central figure in both dispensations.
If new expressions of the Father's will are to be made
in connection with the work of Christ on earth, they
must be made by the " Immanuel," who is thus '^ rec-
onciling the world unto himself." Did Christ teach
the abrogation of the Decalogue of which the Sab-
bath law is a part? Let his own words answer :

''Think not that I came to destroy the law or the
prophets. I came not to destroy, but to fulfill. For
verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away, one
jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law,
till all things be accomplished. AVhosoever, therefore,
shall break one of these least commandments, and shall
teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of
heaven ; but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall
be called great in the kingdom of heaven."^

When Christ speaks of the law (tov vofiov) in
these emphatic words, he cannot mean the ceremo-
nial code, for these ceremonies were typical of him

1 Matthew v. 17—19.

24 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

and must pass away with his death. Besides this,
the word fulfill (yrXTjpcoaai) means the opposite of
destruction (^KaraXvaai) . Clirist fulfilled the law
by perfect obedience to it. He corrected false in-
terpretations, and intensified its claims. He taught
obedience to it in the spirit as well as the letter, and
urged obedience from love rather than fear. Such a
work could not have been done in connection v^ith
the dying ceremonies of the Jewish system. Such a
work Christ did do with reference to the Decalogue.
In connection w^ith the passage above quoted Christ
immediately refers to two laws from the Decalogue,
explains and enforces their meaning in a way far more
broad and deep than those wdio listened to him were
wont to conceive of them.

On another occasion ^ a certain shrewd lawyer
sought to entrap the Saviour by asking '* which is the
greatest commandment in the law." The question
has no meaning unless it be applied to the Decalogue.
Christ's answer includes all the commandments of
the Decalogue and thus avoids the trap designed
by the questioner, who sought to lead him into some
distinction between laws known to be equal in their
nature and extent.

in the sixteentJt chapter of Luke, '^ Christ again
1 Matthew xxii. o5 — 40. ^j^Q^yerse

CHRIST AND THE LAAV. 25

affirms in the strongest language, that " It is easier
for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the
law to fail." Language could not be plainer than
that which is used in these statements.

These sentiments accord fully with the practice of
Christ rehitive to the Sabbath. He boldly condemned
the unjust requirements which the Jews had attached
to the observance of it, and taught that works of
mercy were to be freely done on that day ; that it
was made for man's good, and not his injury. But
he never taught that because it was " made for man "
therefore it was to be abrogated, or unsanctified.
Neither did he delegate to his disciples any power to
teach the abrogation of the law, or of the Sabbath.
On the contrary, their representative writings con-
tain the same clear testimony in favor of the perpe-
tuity of the law, and show the same practical
observance of the Sabbath. Paul, the great reasoner
among the Apostles, after an exhaustive discussion
concerning the relations between the law and the
Gospel, concludes the whole matter in these words :

"Do we then make the law of none effect through
faith? God forbid ! Nay, we establish the law."^

Again in the same epistle ^ he presents a conclu-
sive argument, starting from the axiom that " where
i Romans iii. 31. ^p^Q^^ai^s y_ 13 14

26 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

there is no law there is no sin." Showing that since
death, which came by sin, reigned from Adam to
Moses, therefore the law then existed, and, by the
same reasoning that if there be no law under the gos-
pel dispensation, there can be no sin ; if no sin, then
no Saviour from sin, and Christ died in vain, if by
his death he destroyed the law. In another place
Paul contrasts the Decalogue with the ceremonial
code and declares the worthlessness of the one and
the binding character of the other, in these w^ords :

"Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is noth-
ing, but the keeping of the Commandments of God."^

Thus, in a plain and unequivocal way, Paul teaches
as his Master taught. ^

EXAMPLE.

The example of Christ and his apostles is in full
harmony with their teachings. During Christ's life,
while his disciples were with him, the Sabbath was
always observed by him and them. In all his acts
there is no hint that the law was to be annulled. On
the contrary, Christ speaks prophetically of the Sab-
bath as an existing institution at the time when Jeru-

^ 1. Corinthians vii. 19.

2 Passages quoted from Paul's writings, to prove the abrogation
of the law, will be fully examined in another place.

EXAMPLE OF APOSTLES. 27

salem should be destroyed,^ and tells his disciples to
pray that their flight might not occur on that day,
knowing that this destruction would not come until
long after his death.

DID THE APOSTLES OBSERVE THE SABBATH?

The book of Acts is the main source of history
concerning these men. It tells where they journey-
ed, what they preached, and what befell them. The
tJiirteenth chapter ^ contains the following account :

" But they, passing through from Perga, came to Anti-
och of Pisidia, and they went into the synagogue on the
Sabbath day, and sat down."

Being invited to speak, Paul preached to them
concerning Christ, and especially concerning his
death and resurrection ; — a significant fact to be care-
fully noted and more fully examined hereafter. To
say that this was done by the Apostles, as Jeics^ is
to charge them w^ith unmanly dissembling. They
w^ere Christians teaching others to become Christians.
Neither did they seek the synagogue on the Sabbath
simply to teach the Jews ; for it is stated in this
same chapter, that :

" And as they went out, they besought that these words
might be spoken to them the next Sabbath. And the next

1 Matthew xxiv. 20. " 14th verse.

28 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

Sabbath almost the whole city was gatherea together to
hear the word of God." ^

Pursuing the history through the next chapter, we
find Paul and his companions continuing to travel
from place to place, preaching and gathering churches,
until the calling of the council at Jerusalem, an
account of which is found in the fifteenth chapter.
This council and its decisions have a direct bearing
upon the question under consideration. The object
of the council was to decide how far Gentile converts
should be required to conform to those ordinances
and ceremonies which were peculiarly Jewish. Had
the Sabbath belonged to these, some reference to it
could not have been avoided, since the Jews deemed
it of paramount importance, and Paul and his com-
panions had just come from a tour among the Gen-
tiles, to whom they had taught its observance. The
silence of that council concerning the Sabbath, and
its decisions relative to minor questions, are evi-
dence that the Sa1)l)ath was openly recognized and
observed by all, under the universal law of the
fourth commandment.

The points involved in the Jerusalem council are
as follows :

(a) Should Gentile converts be required to sub-
^ 42d and 44th verses.

EXAMPLE OF APOSTLES. 29

mit to circumcision and keep the ceremonial law, as
requisites to salvation ? To this question the council
promptly answered, No. This answer did not touch
the Sa])bath in any way.

(b} Certain things were required. But these
were really outside of the ceremonial code. Idola-
try and lewdness were in direct violation of the laws
of the Decalogue. The eating of blood was akin to
idolatry, as a species of sacrilege. The first prohi-
bition concerning it was given to Noah. Gen. ix.
4. This was repeated and more fuU}^ explained in
Lev. xvii. 10-14. In the 11th verse the reason given
makes the requirement more than ceremonial, since
it is based on the fact that God had made blood
the sign of atonement on the altar. To the early
Jewish converts it stood as the representative of
Christ's blood so lately shed for the salvation of
both Jew and Gentile. Hence James deemed it
worthy to be classed with moral precepts, since sac-
rilege and idolatry were thus one. This council
was not called for the purpose of legislation, and
had no, power to annul a law of the Decalogue. Its
purpose was to arrange the difference between the
Judaistic and the Gentile elements in the church, and
to testify that salvation came by faith, and not by
ceremonies which had once pointed to Christ, but

30 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

were now obsolete, since Christ had come and suf-
fered. It is a preposterous stretch of logic to claim
for such a council the right to annul a law of the
Decalogue. And more: if silence concerning the
Sabbath, on the part of this council, indicates that it
deemed the Sal^bath law annulled, the same is true
of all the other laws except those against idolatry
and lewdness. The proposition destroys itself.

At the conclusion of this council, Paul and Silas
set out in one direction, and Barnabas and Mark in
another, to revisit those churches already formed,
and preach the Word in other fields. The history
of this tour shows the same recognition and observ-
ance of the Sal^bath. It is said^ that they came to
Philippi, "the chief city of that part of Macedonia,
and abode there certam days," and, in the words of
the historian :

" And on the Sabbath day, we went forth without the
gate by a river side, where we supposed there wns a place
of prayer ; and we sat down and spake unto the women
which were come together."

This was a place for out-door worship in a city

which was probably destitute of a synagogue. It

was twenty years after Christ's resurrection, and

among those who, of all others, w^ould be most likely

^ Acts xvi. 12. 10.

EXAMPLE OF APOSTLES. 31

to discard the Sabbath. From Philippi the apostles
proceeded to Thessalonica,

"Where was a synagogue of the Jews, and " Paul,"
as his custom was, went in unto them, and for three
Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures."

'' Opening and alleging that it behooved the Christ to
suffer and to rise again from the dead, and that this Jesus
whom said he I proclaim unto you is the Christ."

"And some of them were persuaded, and consorted
with Paul and Silas ; and of the devout Greeks a great
multitude, and of the chief women not a few." ^

Passing from thence to Berea, and thence to Atli-
ens, in both of which places Paul taught in the syna-
gogues, they came to Corinth, where Paul remained
"a year and six months, and reasoned in the syna-
gogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and
the Greeks." -^3

The nineteenth chapter relates that Paul taught for
two years and three months at Ephesus. ^' So that
ail they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the
Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greelvs."'

1 xVcts xvii. 2, 5. ■

2 Acts xviii. 4 and 11.

3 It was at this time that Paul organized the church at Corinth,
to which he wrote five years later, telling them to lay by their gifts
for the poor at Jeiusalem, on the first day of the week. See an
examination of this passage in the next chapter.

32 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

SUMMARY.

Collating these facts, and summing up the case as
regards the example of Christ and his apostles, it
stands as follows :

1. During the life of Christ the Sabbath was al-
ways observed by him, and b}^ his followers. He
corrected the errors and false notions which were
held concerning it, but gave no hint that it was to be
abrogated.

2. The book of Acts gives a connected history of
the recognition and observance of the Sabbath by the
apostles while they were organizing many of the
churches spoken of in the New Testament. These
references extend over a period of eight or nine
years, the last of them being at least tw^enty years
after the resurrection.

3. In all the history of the doings and teachings
of the apostles, there is not the remotest reference to
the abrogation of the Sab1)ath.

Had there been any change made or beginning to
be made, or an}^ authority for the abrogation of the
Sal)l)ath law, the apostles must have known it. To
claim that there was is therefore to charge them
with studiously concealing the truth. And also, with
recognizing and calling a day the Sabbath which ivas
not tJte Sabbath.

SUMMARY. 33

Add to these considerations tlie following facts :

(a) The latest books of the New Testament, in.
eluding the Gospel of John, were written a])ont the
year ninety-five. In none of these is there an\' trace
of the change of the Sabbath, nor is the abrogation
of the Sabbath law taught in them.

(6) The Sabbath is mentioned in the New Testa-
ment sixty times, and always in its appropriate
character.

Thus the law and the gospel are in harmony, and
teach that "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord thy God."

But some will say, "Christ and his apostles did
all this as Jews, simply." If this be true, then
Christ lived and taught simply as a Jeiv and not as
the Saviour of the looiid. On the contrary he was
at war with the false and extravagant notions of
Judaism concerning questions of truth and duty.
If Christ were not a "Christian," but a "Jew," what
becomes of the system which he taught? If his
first followers, who periled all for him and sealed their
faith with their blood, were only Jews, or worse, were
dissemblers, doing that w^hich Christians ought not
to do, for sake of policy, where shall Christians be
found? The assumption dies of its own inconsistency.
More than this. New Testament history repeatedly
3

34 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

states that the Greeks were taught on the Sabbath
the same as the Jews, and in those churches where
the Greek element predominated there is no trace of
any different teaching or custom on this point. The
Jewish Christians kept up their national institutions,
for a time, such as circumcision and the passover,
while all Christians accepted the Sabbath as a part
of the law of God. The popular outcry against the
Sabbath as "Jewish " savors more of prejudice and
i'gnorance than of consistency and charity. Christ
was in all respects, as regards nationality, a Jew.
So were all the writers of the Old Testament, and
all the writers of the New Testament. God has
given the world no word of inspiration in the Bible,
from Gentile pen, or Gentile lips. Is the Bible
therefore "Jewish"? The Sabbath, if possible, is
less Jewish than the Bible. It had its beginning
long l)of()re a Jew was born. It is God's day mark-
ed by his own example, and sanctified by his blessing,
for the race of man, beginning when the race l)egan,
and can end only when the race shall cease to exist.
Christ recognized it under the gospel as he recog-
nized each of the othcsr eternal laws with which it is
associated in the Decalogue ; recognized them as the
everlasting words of his Father, whose law he came
to magnify and fulfill. It tells of pitiable weakness.

NO-SABBATHISM, O. T. 35

and unchristian irreverence, to attempt to thrust out
and stigmatize any part of God's truth as "Jewish,"
when all of God's promises and all Bible truth have
come to us through the Hebrew nation.

CHAPTER IV.

OPPOSING THEORIES EXAMINED.

NO-SABBATH THEORY.

By this is meant the prevalent theory that there is
no sacred time under the gospel dispensation ; that
the Sabbath was only a Jewish institution, which
began with the Hebrew nation, and was abrogated
at the death of Christ. Against such a theory the
following points have already been established.

1. The Sabbath law, being a primary law in moral
government, is necessarily co-existent with that gov-
ernment.

2. The Sabbath as God's memorial, his monument
and representative in time, came into being when he
rested upon the seventh day, and blessed and sancti-
fied it.

3. The Sabbath law grew out of the relations which
always have existed between the Creator and the
creature, and meet certain universal demands in hu-
man life ; it cannot therefore cease until these rela-
tions and demands shall cease.

NO-SABBATHISM, O. T. 37

4. The BI])le history, and collateral testimony, (see
appendix,) show that the Sa])bath was ol)served pre-
vious to the organization of the Hebrew nation.

5. When Jehovah a'ave the eternal laws of his o-ov-
ernment to the world, in the Decalogue, he placed
the Sabbath law as the key-stone of the arch. It
alone contains the signature of God, the Creator.

6. The Bi])le nowhere represents the Sabbath as
a ceremonial institution. It has nothing in common
with those festival days, which, as a part of the cere-
monial code, pointed to Christ.

7. Christ and his apostles taught the perpetuity of
the law, and always observed the Sabbath.

Such an accumulation of evidence is enough to
justify these pages in giving the Xo-Sabbath theory
no further notice. Nevertheless, it is better to ex-
amine its leading claims. The following is a repre-
sentative passage from the Old Testament : ^

" The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb."
" The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but
with us, even us, who are all of us alive here this day."

The claim is made that the Decalogue was this cove-
nant. Vie have shown that the covenant was not
God's law, but an agreement between Jehovah and
his people, by which they were boun 1 to keep that
1 Deut. V. 2, 3, 15.

38 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

law, and he, upon such obedience, to grant to them
certain promised blessings. The case is a very plain
one, and needs no further remark, in addition to what
has been said on pages fifteen and sixteen. The
fifteenth verse reads as follows :

" And remember that thou wast a servant in the land
of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out
thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm ;
therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the
Sabbath day."

In the face of the plain statement made by Jeho-
vah in the Decalogue, the claim is here made that the
deliverance from Egypt was the cause why the Sab-
bath was instituted. The reader will remember that
the goodness of God in delivering the Israelites from
bondage is often used as a reason for their obedience
to all his commandments. ^ If, therefore, the claim
of the Xo-Sab])ath theory be correct, all the laws of
the Decalogue were given for that reason. This is
absurd. The whole truth is contained in a single
sentence, namely : God's goodness to the Israelites is
presented as a reason why tJiey sJioidd obey him. In
the case quoted, the latter clause of the fourteenth
verse shows that the Israelites were there urged to
allow^ their servants the blessing of the Sabbath rest,
and they are referred to their own bondage in Egypt
'■ See Exodus, xx. 2. Lev. xxvi. 13. Ps. Ixxxi. 9, 10, etc.

NO-SABBATHISM, N. T. 39

in contrast with their delivered state, to strengthen
this appeal. But if there were any doubt as to the
correctness of this simple explanation, the fact that
the Jews never understood the 8al)bath as commem-
orative of their deliverance from Egypt settles the
question. More than this, the "passover" was giv-
en and is yet observed , to commemorate that deliv-
erance. Its whole meaning and language befit such
an end, while the rest of the Sabbath is in no way sig-
nificant of the turmoil and hurry oi t\\Q. exode. Be-
sides all this, the No-Sabbath theory contradicts
God's plain words, in Genesis, ii. 3 ; and Exodus,
XX. 11.

NO-SABBATHISM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.

Only a few " proof texts " are quoted from the New
Testament in- support of the No-Sabbath theory.
The following from Paul's letter to the Roynans'^ is
deemed a strong one.

"Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, hut not to
doubtful disputations." '^

" For one believeth he may eat all things ; another who
is weak, eateth herbs."

" Let not him that eateth, despise him that eateth not;
and let not him which eateth not, judge him that eateth ;
for God hath received him."

^ xiv. 1-7. - " Not to judge his doubtful thoughts."

40 SABBATH AXD 8UXDAY.

" Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?
To his own master he standeth or falleth ; yea he shall
be holden up ; for God is able to make him stand."

" One man esteemeth one day above another ; another
esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be inWy per-
suaded in his own mind."

"He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord ;
and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not
regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he
giveth God thanks ; and he that eateth not, to the Lord
he eateth not, and giveth God thanks."

This passage concerning the observance of days is
thus given with its contexts, that the reader may the
more readily see what theme Paul is considering.
This fourteenth chapter directs how those shall be
treated who still cling to that part of the ceremonial
code which refers to clean and unclean foods, and cer-
tain days which were associated with them. There
is no description of the days, or the manner in which
they were observed, but every law of just interpre-
tation classifies them with the other ceremonial ob-
servances mentioned. It is well known that public
and private voluntary fasts abounded among the Jews
at this time, in addition to the older ceremonial feasts.
Whatever did not touch the question of seeking for-
giveness through Christ is thus spoken of as not
important enough to ])e a bar to fellowship, or a source

NO-SABBATHISM, N. T. 41

of contention. A similar instance occurs in Gal. iv.
10, where the ceremonial times are grouped as " days,
months, times, and years " ; in this case, as with those
addressed in Hebrews, the tendency seems to have
been tow^ard apostasy from Christ by substituting
these ceremonial observances for faith. The observ-
ance of the Sabbath had never been a part of the
ceremonial system. It had always been a promi-
nent feature of the Decalogue, and its observance
could not conflict with faith in Christ any more than
the observance of the remaining ten commandments
could. As a matter of fact, it was reliance on the
ceremonial system for purification from sin, rather
than on faith in Christ, which the apostle is every-
where opposing. Paul being his own interpreter,
makes this doubly sure ; for in the seventh chapter^
of this same epistle — Rom. — he speaks of the Dec-
alogue, of which the Sabbath law^ is a part, in these
words :

"Wherefore the law is holy, and the commaudment
holy, and just, and good."

A careful study of this seventh chapter of Ro-
mans will show that Paul places the highest impor-
tance upon the observance of that law which convicts
of sin, and is thus our "school-master," leading us to

^ 12th verse.

42 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

Christ for forgiveness. And James, speaking of the
same law, says : ^

"For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and 3'et
offend in one point ^ he is guilty of all."

Paul could not say in one breath that such a law
was of great importance, and in the next that it was
of little or no importance.

The second chapter of Colossi ans'^ is often quoted
as a clear statement of the No-Sabbath theory.

" Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, ^
or in respect of an holy day,"^ or of the new moon, or of
the sabbath days ;" "^

'' Which are a shadow of things to come ; but the body
is Christ."

Here it is claimed that the "sabl)aths" are dis-
tinctly included among things indifferent. Note,
first, it is not said that they are abrogated ; the
most that can be made of the expression is that they
are not to be made a matter of dissension or con-
demnation. Looking at the passage more closely we
find that four of the things mentioned are certainly
ceremonial : eating, drinking, feasts and new moons.

Mi. 10.

21GLI1 and 17th verses.

3 Greek, "for eatiiiiij or drhiking."

* Greek, "conceniinsj the participating in a holy festival."

5 Greek, "Sabbaths.''

NO-SABBATHISM, N. T. 43

The fifth item, "sabbaths," is in the same construc-
tion, and stands in the midst of the sentence. If
the expression does include the weekly Sabbath, it is
an illogical and unwarrantable eftbrt to take an eter-
nal law from the heart of the Decalogue, and class it
with temporary ceremonial precepts, for the sake of
abrogating it. Christ never ventured such an attack
on the law of God, as Paul makes here, if he means
the weekly Sabbath. But we are not left in doul^t
as to what "sabbaths" are meant, for, without stop-
ping to take breath, Paul defines them as being, like
the other items, shadows, types of Christ. What-
ever the word "sabbaths" might mean considered
alone, the definition given here cannot include the
weekly Sabbath. That antedated the ceremonial
code man}^ centuries. The law of the fourth com-
mandment was placed in the heart of the Decalogue,
before the ceremonial code was compiled. God
knew where it belonged. The reason given for en-
acting the fourth commandment is i)erfectly plain.
It was a memorial of God as Creator. It is never
spoken of as a type of Christ. The Jews never
understood it to be snch. If the fourth command-
ment was a type of Christ, and is done away, then
each of its nine associates is in the same category.
Even the ol^scure passage in the 4th of Hel)rews

44 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

makes it a type of heaven, if a type at all. The
construction of the passage in Colossians, and the
definition given, both preclude the idea tliat the
weekly Sabbath is meant.

The third chapter of second Corinthians is also
impressed to do duty in defense of the No-Sabbath
theory. The following passage embodies the testi-
mony, so-called :

"But if the ministration of death written and engraven
in stones was glorious, so that tlie children of Israel could
not steadfastly look upon the face of Moses for the glory
of his countenance — which (jlory was to be done away —
how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather
glorious?" etc.^

A careful reading will show that the contrast here
introduced is between the glory of the Mosaic dis-
pensation as compared with the Gospel. It is not
the Decalogue which is to be "done away," but the
"glory" of the former ministration, which must be
lost before the surpassing glory of the later one.
Read again the passage and its contexts.

These passages form the stronghold of the No-
Sabbath theory in the New Testaaient. We leave
them without further remark, pausing to call the at-
tention of the reader to the utter ruin which this
theory Avorks in the realm of moral obligation :

^ Ttli iind 8th vprso9.

NO-SABBATHI8M, N. T. 45

1. If the Decalogue was abolished by the death
of Christ, then Christ by his death prevented the
possibility of sin, to redeem man from which, he
died.

2. "Sin is not imputed where there is no law,^
hence the consciousness of sin which men feel under
the claims of the gospel is a mockery, and all faith
in Christ is but a farce. It only increases the diffi-
culty to say that the law is written in the hearts of
believers. If that be true, then :

3. None but believers in Christ can be convicted
of sin, for no others can know the law which convicts
of sin. Therefore those who reject Christ, thereby
become, at least negatively, righteous by refusing to
come where they can be convicted of sin. Thus
does the No-Sabbath theory make infidelit}^ better
than belief, and rejection of Christ the only means of
salvation. It leads to endless absurdities, and the
overthrow of all moral government. It contradicts
the plain words of God, and puts darkness for light.
Its fruitage in human life has been only bitterness
and ashes.

i Rom. V. 13.

CHAPTER Y.

CHANGE OF THE DAY THEORY.

The Puritan branch of Protestants claims that the
Sabbath has been changed, by divine authority, from
the seventh to the first day of the week. This
theory is based upon the assumption that the Sab-
bath institution is a separate thing from the Sabbath
day, and hence that the Sabbath law may be applied
to any seventh portion of time. In opposition to
this theory it has been shoAvn :

1. That the Sabbath law and the Sabbath day are
inseparable, and that the Sabbatic institution is the
result of obedience to the Sabbath law, and ceases
to exist when that law is broken.

2. That there could have been no Sabbath if God
had not rested on a definite day, for a definite purpose,
which no other day could answer. Having rested on
a definite day, he blessed and sanctified a definite day,
and thus made it the Sab1)ath. To say that the Sab-
bath is only an indefinite seventh part of time, is to
say that God rested on an indefinite seventh part of

CHANGE OF THE DAY THEORY. 47

time, and blessed an indefinite seventh part of time,
all of which is illogical and unscriptural. This theo-
ry also " begs the question " by adhering to the septen-
ary division of time, and rejecting the definite day.
Upon such an illogical assumption the whole theory
of a change of the Sabbath is based. Nevertheless
we shall examine the reasons offered in its support
in detail. They are as follows :

1. Christ rose from the dead on the first day of
the week.

2. The apostles met on that day for public wor-
ship, and to commemorate his resurrection.

The first reason is usually separated into the fol-
lowing propositions :

(a) Redemption is a greater work than creation.

(h) Redemption was completed at the resurrec-
tion of Christ.

Conclusion. Therefore, since the resurrection, the
Sabbath law applies to the first day of the week,
and not to the seventh.

It were answer enough to the alcove theor}^ to
suo^orest that the conclusion is not a leo:itimate deduc-
tion from the premises. Indeed, the premises over-
throw the conclusion ; for, if " redemption " is a

48 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

ofreater work than '' creation " and different, then
that Avhich was only sufficient to commemorate crea-
tion cannot commemorate redemption. Different
works must be differently commemorated, and the
greater cannot be commemorated by that w^hich only
measures the less. Again, the seventh day can only
cease to be sacred, and hence to be the Sabbath,
when the causes which make it the Sabbath shall
cease to exist. This can never be, since those causes
were the words and acts of the infinite Jehovah.

These propositions are equally unsound when con-
sidered separately. The first one, in saying that
"Redemption is a greater work than creation," as-
sumes that finite man can measure the work of
"Creation," and comprehend the goodness, power
and wisdom of the Infinite One as therein displayed ;
that he can look into and understand the work of
Redemption as the angels desired to do, but were not
able ; can comprehend the infinite love and mercy of
God as wrought out in that plan, and having thus
comprehended and measured two infinite works, can
compare one with the other, and decide which of
them is the r/reater infinity. Such presumption and
want of logic combine to crush the proposition which
contains them.

The second proposition asserts that " Redemption
was completed at the resurrection [)f Christ." This

CHANGE OF THE DAY THEORY. 49

is faulty in point of fact. The work of redemption
began witii the advent of sin. Christ was as a lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. ^ The tirst
sacrifice that smoked on the altars of Eden told of re-
demption. The work of the Redeemer will continue
until, as Judge of men, he shall put all things under
his feet, and deliver up the kingdom unto his Father.
Instead of ceasing the work at his resurrection,
Christ ascended to the right hand of the Father, to
be our intercessor, until, in the fullness of time, he
shall deliver the redeemed and glorified universe up
to God. 2 If any one point marks the close of the
earth-life of Christ as Redeemer among men, it is the
hour of his death, when he cried, "it is finished,"
and died. ^ Hence the second proposition 'fails.

The third proposition — "Christ rose from the
grave on the first day of the week" — has been ac-
cepted without question by the majority of those
who will read these pages. Xeither the fact of the
resurrection, nor the time when it occurred, has any
logical connection with the Sabbath question, or
rightful place in the Sabbath argument ; but since
the public mind associates the two questions, it is
needful to pass this third proposition under a careful
review in order that the reader may see on what
sandy grounds the popular theory rests.

iRev. xiii. 8. ^1 Corinthians xv. 24—29. ^ john xix. 30.
4

50 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

TIME OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION.

Before taking up the historic accounts of the resur-
rection by the evangelists, certain outlying facts need
to be examined. Christ uttered an important proph-
ecy concerning this matter in the tirelfth chapter of
Matthew, 1 which reads as follows :

" Then certain of the Scribes and Pharisees answered
him, saying ; Master, we would see a sign from thee."

" But he answered and said unto them, an evil and adul-
terous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no
sign be given to it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet."

" For as .Jonah was three days and three nights in the
belly of the whale : so shall the Son of man be three days
and three nights in the heart of the earth."

The circumstances forbid all indefiniteness of ex-
pression. It is a case in which Christ oft'ers to his
enemies a test involving not simply the truthfulness
of his words, but the proof that he w^as the Son of
God. In keeping wdth this thought; the language
respecting the time is carefully and exactly w^orded.

The Greek says ;

'OcTTrep 7a/3 riv 'Icoya? iv ry KocXia rod Ktjrovf; rpeU
rj/jL€pa<; Kal rpel^; vi)KTa<^ ,ovrw<^ ecrrai 6 vi6<; rov avOpoo-
TTOV iv rfi KapBla rrj^ 7/;? rpeU ijf^epai; Kal rpeU vvKTa<;.

The Latin says :

1 38 — 41st verses.

TIME OF Christ's resurrection. 51

" Sicut enim fuit Jonas in ventre ceti tres dies et tres
noctes : sic erit Fillius hominis in eorde terrae tres dies
et tres noctes."

The original account in Jonah ^ reads as follows :

" And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and
three nights."

The Greek of the Septuagint, says :

Kal TjV 'Iwm? €V rfj KOiXla rod K7]tov(; rpek rj/nepaf;
fcal rpel^ vv /era's'

The Hebrew is in the same construction and
equally definite. It is omitted for want of Hebrew
type.

In this prophecy one point is unmistakably es-
tablished, namely : the length of the time during
which Christ must remain in the grave. This forms
the basis for investigation.

The time when Christ was entombed is equally
clear and definite. Matthew ^ says :

" And when even was come, there came a rich man from
Arimathea named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus'
disciple."

"This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of
Jesus. Then Pilate commanded it to be given up.

"And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean
linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb which he had
hewn out in the rock ; and he rolled a great stone to the
door of the tomb and departed."

The Greek of the passage which refers to the
M. 17. 2xxvii. 57— 61.

52 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

time, is : 'O-^/rta? Be yevofj,6V7]<;, literally, " when it was
late." John corroborates the words of Matthew and
shows ^ that it was late in the day, just before the
setting of the sun, that the body of Christ was laid
in the grave. By the words of his own prophecy,
then, he must have risen at an hour in the day corres-
ponding to the hour of his entombment. Thus two
points are established, namely : the time of the day
when the resurrection must occur, late in the day,
and the length of time which must intervene between
the entombment and the resurrection, three days and
three nights. We are now prepared to examine the
history of the resurrection as given by the evan-
gelists.

Three of the evangelists speak of the resurrection
only in general terms, giving neither the time when
it occurred, nor the circumstances attending it.
John says : ^

"Now on the first day of the week cometh Mary
Magdalene early, while it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and
seeth the stone taken away from the tomb," etc.

Luke says :^

" But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they
came unto the tomb, bringing the spices which they had
prepared."

ixix. 31, 38, 42.

^xx. 1.

3 xxiv. 1—3

TIME OF Christ's reslrrectiox. 53

" And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb."
" And they entered in, and found not the body of the
Lord Jesus."

Mark says : ^

"And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene
and Mary the Mother of James, and Salome, bought
spices, that they might come and annoint him."

"And very early on the first day of the week, they
come to the tomb when the sun was risen."

These accounts teach nothing more than the fact
that when the parties mentioned visited the sepul-
chre, they found it empty\ Christ had risen and
gone. But Matthew gives an account quite different,
and more definite ; one which tells of a visit previous
to the one spoken of l)y the other three writers just
examined. The following is the account .-^

Now late on the Sabbath-day, as it began to dawn
toward the first day of the week came Mary Magdalene,
and the other Mary to see the sepulchre."

" And behold there was 3 a great earthquake; for an
angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and
rolled away the stone, and sat upon it."

" His appearance was as lightning and his raiment white
as snow."

" And for fear of him the watchers did quake, and be-
came as dead men.''

ixvi. 2.

^xxviii. 1-S.

3 Margin, "had been"; Greek, iy^v^ro

54 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

"And the angel answered and said unto the women,
Fear not ye ; for I know that ye seek Jesus which hath
been crucified."

" He is not here ; for he is risen even as he said, come,
see the place where the Lord lay ; " etc.

Here is an account minute in details respecting
both the time of the resurrection, and the circum-
stances connected with it. It agrees in all particu-
lars with the recjuirements of the prophecy of Christ
and the time of his entombment. The opening clause
of the twenty-eighth chapter fixes the time, "Late
in the Sabbath."^ The Sabbath dosed at sunset.

This point of time exactly corresponds to the hour
of the entom]:>ment. No amount of " surmising '
or "supposing" can change this plain statement.
If the exeo^etical arscument be souo:ht from the con-
struction of the Greek it is equally as plain and
strong. The possessive idea denoted by the geni-
tive necessitates that the point of time denoted by
6^^r6 be contained within the time denoted l)y the
noun. So here, aa/S/Sdrcov holds 6^fre within its
limits, '0^fr€, when constructed with a verb in the
infinitive may sometimes mean " after," in the sense
of "too late," when referring to an action. But in
the case under consideration it can not thus mean.
No commentator has attempted to tlius interpret this

TIME OF Christ's resurrection. 55

passage except upon the assumption or upon the
SKppositio/i that Matthew meant something which he
did not say, and that his account must be forced to
agree with the other three, and thus give some
shadow of support to an inferential "harmony."
Nor is the word translated "dawn" opposed to the
view here expressed. It is iincficocrKova-r) from
^E7n(f)(o(TKco, This is used but once, besides this,
in the New Testament. That use is by Luke,^ where
the Passover Sabbath folio winsr the crucifixion is
said to "draAV on." Here the term is used concern-
ing the da}^ closing at sunset. This is a natural and
legitimate translation of the word, and there is no
reason why it should not be thus rendered in Mat-
thew xxviii. 1. Such a rendering only, agrees with
the facts. The Sabbath closed at sunset on the
seventh day of the week. At the same hour the first
day of the week "drew on," "came in sight,"
" began to appear." Translators of the New Testa-
ment have been more truthful to the correct render-
ing than interpreters have been to the correct exe-
gesis, as the following facts testify :

The Syriac Peshito version, renders this passage,
"In the evening of the Sabbath." The Latin of the
Vulgate renders it by the same words. Beza's Latin

ixxiii, 54.

56 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

translation has the same. Tyndale's translation says :
" The Sa])bath-day at even." Coverdale's translation
reads. " Upon the evening of the Sabbath holy
day." Cranmer's, the Genevan, and the Bishop's
versions, all render it, "In the latter end of the Sab-
bath-day." The Greek is literally — '* Late in the
Sabbath." Rotherhani's Critically Emphasized Ver-
sion, says: "And late in [the] week, when it was
on the point of dawninsf into [the] the first of [the]
week," etc. Alford — Greek Gospels — acknowledges
the important fact, but attempts to make Matthew
accord with the other evangelists by " supposing "
that he meant something different from what he says.
These are Alford's words.

'* There is some little difficulty here, because the end
of the Sabbath (and of the week) locfs at simset the night
before. It is hardly to be supposed that Matthew means
the evening of the Sabbath, though eTre^wo-Ke is used of
the day beginning at sunset.^ It is best to interpret a
doubtful expression in unison with other testimonies, and
to suppose that here both the daij and the breaking of the
day., are taken in their natural.^ not in their Jeivish sense.

On Luke xxiii. 54, Alford says : ^

" i7recf>o)a-K€v, ' dreio on^ a natural word, used of the
conventional (Jewish) day beginning at sunset. There is
no reference to the lighting of candles in the evening, or

1 Luke xxiii. .54, and note.

2 Greek Gospels.

TIME OF Christ's resurrection. 57

on the Sabbath. Lightfoot (in loc.) has shown that
such a use of the word was common among the Jews who
called the evening (the beginning) of a day, 'light.' "

The italics in the abo'/e are Alford's. His scholar-
ship is far better than his eflbrt to make Matthew's
account harmonize with the rest of the Evangelists.
His words as a scholar, forbid his supposition as a
theologian. There is nothing " doubtful " in the
meaning of Matt, xxviii. 1, when it is allowed to say
what it does say.

About 1865, the writer published the proposition
that Christ's entombment occurred on the eveninor of
the fourth day of the week, and his resurrection be-
fore the close of the Sabbath, and not upon the first day
of the week. The proposition was met with a storm
of criticism by some, and with careful consideration
by others. This interpretation has gained ground
steadily, until the highest authorities in New Testa-
ment criticism now support it. The revisers of the
Ntiw Testament have given it absolute sanction, by
translating as above. To place the matter still firther
beyond dispute there has lately appeared a " Greek-
English Lexicon of the New Testament^ Grimni's
wake's Clavis JSTovi Testamenti. Translated, Re-
vised and Enlarged, by Joseph Henry Thayer, D. D.,
Bussey Professor of New Testament Criticism and

58 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

Interpretation in the Divinity School of Harvard
University " : in which the construction of ]Matthew
xxviii. 1 is fully discussed. After giving the refer-
ences which have been adduced in support of the
translation "after the Sabbath," Prof. Thayer says :

''But an examination of the instances just cited (and
others) will show that thev fail to sustain the rendering
after (although it is recognized by Passow, Pape, Schen-
kel and other lexicographers) : opk, followed by a geni-
tive, seems always to h^ partitive, denoting late in the
period specified by the genitive, (and consequently
still belonging to it, ) cf. B. sec. 132, 7 Rem. Kuehner
sec. 414, 0 c> /?. Hence in Matthew [1. c] late on the
Sabbath. Keim. iii. p. 552, seq. [Eng. trans, vi. 303,
seq.] endeavors to relieve the passage differently (by
adopting the Vulg., vespere Sahhati : on the evening of
the Sabbath), but without success. Compare Keil, Com.
ueber Matt. Ad loc.''

Thus is the weight of past and present scholarship
thrown in favor of the explanation here given. This
explanation shows that the prophecy of Christ, and
the accounts of the entombment, and of the resurrec-
tion agree with extreme fidelity. And the accounts
of the Evangelists agree w^ith each other when the
fact is thus recognized that, in the opening of
the twenty-eighth chapter, Matthew speaks of the
first visit to the sepulchre "late in the Sabbath," to
which visit the other evangelists do not refer ; they

TIME OF Christ's resurrection. 59

describe a second visit made early on the following
mornino^. Matthew's account of the first visit evi-
dently closes with the eighth verse, and in the ninth
he passes to the scenes of the next morning. Thus
the following conclusions are fixed.

Christ was crucified and entombed on the fourth
day of the week^ commonly called Wednesday. He
lay in the grave ''three days and tJiree niglits'' and
rose ''late in the Sabbath,'' at an hour correspond-
ing with the hour of his entombment, at ichich time
two of the luomen came to see the sepulchre.

There is certain circumstantial evidence which
corroborates these conclusions :

1. Since Christ gave the length of time he should
lie in the grave as a sign of his Messiahship, any
failure in the fulfillment of that sign would have been
noted and published by his enemies. The fact that
no such charge has ever been made, and only the
puerile story of the stealing of the body invented,
is evidence that the prophecy was exactly fulfilled.

2. On the day following the crucifixion the Jews
went to Pilate, sought a guard for the tomb for three
days, and attended to the setting of it. This they
would not have done on the weekly Sabbath ; but
they would not shrink from doing it on the Passover
Sabbath which they observed less strictly.

60 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

3. The guard was set to cover a time three vclays
from the entombment. Until that time expired not
even the disciples, much less two lone women, would
attempt to reach the tomb to look after the body.
Henre the women spoken of in Matthew tioenty-
eighth^ came to the tomb with the evident design of
being present the moment the guard should be re-
moved.

On the other hand if the popular theory be correct,
Christ was laid in the grave late on the sixth day of
the week, the guard was set on the seventh day, and
on that same day, scarcely twenty-four hours after
the entombment the women are found at the sepul-
chre, and Christ is risen. Such conclusions contra-
dict the plain statements of the Word, and are out
of accord with all the circumstances in the case. A
circumstantial "objection " to the explanation here
given is made on the claim that the two women would
not be likely to make a second visit to the sepulchre
on the followin^: mornin<j:. , The reverse is the most
natural conclusion. A second visit was necessary to
confirm the hopes which the strange scenes of the
previous evening had awakened. Hence their eager-
ness ; and taking other witnesses, they hasten "while
it was yet dark " to come again to the sacred spot to see
if indeed their Lord had risen. This is farther con-

TIME OF Christ's resurrection. ()1

firmed by the fact already indicated, that the eighth
verse of Matthew twenty-eighth seems to close the
account of the first visit ; while from the ninth verse
to the close of the chapter we have in four se})arate
paragraphs, the whole history of the circmnstances
of the next morning and of the entire time up to
the Ascension of Christ, crowded into eleven verses.
An indirect objection to this view of the time of
the resurrection is based on the scenes connected
with Christ's appearance to the two disciples, on the
way to Emmaus, on the day after his resurrection.
It is claimed that Luke xxiv. 21, indicates the burial
on Friday and the resurrection on Sunday. Ex-
amining this chapter we find,^ that they were talking
of "All these things which had JiajjpenecL'' In the
21st verse, the disciples answer Christ:

" Yea, and beside all this, it is now the third day since
these things came to pass."

Now it is very clear that conversation concerning
the reported resurrection must have included a dis-
cussion of the important fiict that after all else had
occurred, and Christ was buried, a guard had been
set to prevent his resurrection. That was the last
act iii the scenes of his death and burial. If the
hmguage of the two disciples in Luke xxiv. 21, be
1 14th verse.

62 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

taken absolutely, then according to the explanation we
have given of the time of the entombment and the
setting of the guard, Friday would have been the first
day "since" the placing of the guard, for the guard
was set on Thursday , and Sunday would have been
the third day since all these things happened. On
the other hand, if the Eomish tradition of the burial
on Friday, and the placing of the guard on the Sab-
bath, be accepted, there is no possibility of making
Sunday more than ihe first day " since " these things
were done.

The obvious meaning of Luke xxiv. 21, is this.
"The time is now fully up since the final efibrt was
made to prevent a resurrection, and this morning the
women reported that in spite of all efforts to the con-
trary, it had actually taken place." Nevertheless we
are willing, so far as the argument is concerned, that
the language should be interpreted with the most ab-
solute exactness ; which being done, our explanation
of the time of the entombment and of the resur-
rection is the only one with which it can be made to
accord.

It is now pertinent to group together these ob-
jections to the popular notion concerning the resur-
rection.

1. There is nowhere in the Bible any statement
that Christ rose on the first dav of the week.

TIME OF Christ's resurrection. 63

2. The popular claim contradicts the plain words
of Matthew who alone gives the time when the resur-
rection occurred.

3. The claim that Christ was entombed late on
the sixth day of the week disagrees entirely with
the express conditions laid down by Christ in his
prophetic words concerning the time he should lie in
the grave ; therefore :

4. If the popular theory be corrrct, Christ's proph-
ecy was not fulfilled, and, by his own words, he is
proven to have been an impostor. The circum-
stances connected with the burial and resurrection
must also be tortured into unnatural relations and
forced harmony. We can therefore only repeat the
conclusion that Christ did not rise on the first day of
the week. Thus, step by step, the assumptions in
favor of a change of the Sabbath, based upon the
resurrection of Christ, are swept away.

CHAPTER YI.
Christ's example conceening the first day of

THE WEEK.

The remainino^ effort at ai'oument in favor of the
change, is predicated upon the chiim that Christ and
his apostles authorized a change of the day, by their
example in observing the first day of the week. It
is hence necessary to examine the passages which are
quoted in favor of such observance, in their order,
and with their contexts.

The first passage is found in John xx. 19 — 23.
All our readers have the "common version" and many
of them have others, and the original from which to
make their own. To aid in a better understanding:
of the text we present the Revised Version, the
corrected translation as oriven in Lano^e's Commen-
tary, and also the "Critically Emphasized Transla-
tion" of Joseph B. Rotherham. (Bagster, London,
1878.) These are as follows :

" When therefore it was evening, on that da}^ the first
day of the week, and when the doors were shut wliere the
disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and
stood in the midst, and saith unto them, peace be unto

Christ's example. 65

you. And when he had said this, he showed unto them
his hands and his side. The disciples therefore were glad,
when they saw the Lord. Jesus therefore said to them
again, peace he unto you : as the Father hath sent me,
even so send I you. And when he had said this, he
breathed on them, and saith unto them. Receive ye the
Holy Ghost ; whosesoever sins j^e forgive, they are for-
given unto them ; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are
retained." ^

•' When, therefore, it was evening on that day, the first
of the week, and the doors had been shut, or, the doors
being shut, where the disciples were for fear of the Jews,
came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them,
Peace he unto you. And having said this, he showed unto
them both his hands and his side. The disciples therefore
were glad when they saw the Lord. Then he said to them
again. Peace he unto you. As the Father hath sent me,
even so send I you. And when he had said this, he
breathed on theni^ and saith unto them. Receive Holy
Spirit. Whosesoever sins ye remit, they have been remit-
ted ; and whosesoever ye retain, they have been re-
tained." ■"

In the following, the italic type indicates the
Greek emphasis, and not "supplied words," as in
the ordinary version ; the brackets denote supplied
words :

''It being late, therefore, on that day — the first of
[the] week — and the doors having been fastened where
^ Revised Version. '-Lange.
5

QQ SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

the disciples were, by reason of the fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in the midst, and says to them,
Peace to yon ! and this saying, he pointed out both [his]
hands and [his] side to them. The disciples, therefore,
rejoiced^ seeing the Lord ! He said to them again, there-
fore, Peace to you ! According as the Father has sent
me forth, I also send you. And this saying he breathed
strongly, and says to them, Peceive ye Holy Spirit !
Whosesoever sins ye may remit, they have been remitted
unto them : whosesoever ye may be retaining, they have
been retained." ^

Such is the brief history of the appearing of
Christ to his disciples on the evening after the day
on which his resurrection had become known. It is
claimed that this was a meeting of the disciples to
commemorate, sabbatically, the resurrection. Ob-
serve, first that no such thing is either said or im-
plied in the text. On the contrary, it is distinctly
stated that they w^ere secreted, with fastened doors,
"for fear of the Jews." But let us look more fully
into the doings of that day. From Luke (24th chap-
ter) we have seen that wdien the women told the
circumstances of the morning to the eleven disciples
■'their words seemed as idle tales, and they believed
them not."

In the same chapter it is related that two of the
disciples journeyed to Emmaus, seven and one-half

^ Rotherhani.

chkist's example. 67

miles, during that day. Christ joined them on the
journey, and at supper revealed himself to them.
They, wondering and rejoicing, returned to Jerusa-
lem. While they related their story to the other
disciples, Christ came. Even then they would not
believe until he explained his former words con-
cerning himself. Thus it is clear that they did not
believe in his resurrection until late in the evening.
They could not have been together to celebrate an
event in which they did not believe. It was 40
cure this unbelief, to jpvove his resurrection and
not to celebrate it, that Christ came. The hatred
which raged against the disciples necessitated that
they should secrete themselves from the fury of the
Jews. On the evening in question they were thus
hidden away, in despondency, sorrow, and doubt.
Had this been a meeting held for the purpose of in-
stituting so radical a change in a practice so widely
affecting Christian life, and based upon a fact not
until then beli'eved, it is impossible to suppose that
no mention would be made of the fact by the risen
Saviour who alone had power to make a change if one
were possible. His silence disproves the claim. It
is an important fact also that the best commentators,
like Alford, Meyer, Schaff, Lange, andEUicott, make
no eflfort to draw from this Dassasfe anv suDDort what-

68 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

ever for Sunday observance. It is only when men
are anxious to lind a Scriptural warrant for observing
Sunda}^, that, as polemists, and not as commenta-
tors, they attempt to put into this record what neither
Christ nor the Holy Spirit, guiding John, put into
it. Whoever attempts to make the passage support
Sunday-keeping, has to assume that the Spirit left the
account imperfect, and that men have a right to com-
plete it by reading "between the lines," wdmt is not
written. This passage has a still more important
bearing on the whole question, since this first meeting
for the purpose of proving his resurrection was the
natural and obvious time for him to add, " And hence-
forth you are to observe the day just passed, in honor
of my resurrection, as the Sabbath in place of the
day before, which you and I have hitherto ob-
served." Such words from Christ would have put
the question at rest. That he said nothing of the
kind is proof that he meant nothing of the kind.
And more : No writer in the New Testament refers
to this meeting as the beginning of Sunday observ-
ance, or as authority for it. The whole claim was
an afterthought, comparatively modern, to support
a practice, introduced for other reasons.

The second passage which is claimed in support of
Sunday ol^servance, is from the same chapter, John

(xx. 26). It is as follows, and is more iiidefiiiite
than the one just considered :

" And after eight days, again his disciples were within,
and Thomas with them. Jesus cometh, the doors being
shut, and stood in the midst, and said. Peace be unto
you."

It is claimed that this was the next first day, on
the ground that " Sunday and Sunday make eight,"
and that the meeting was again in honor of the resur-
rection. But the account does not state that it was
upon the eighth day, but " after eight days." Now
the English after, the Latin ^o^^, and the Greek ??ze^«,
are among the most 'positive words in these lan-
guages ; and if the time spoken of was exact, it
must have been upon the ninth day at least. If the
expression is indefinite, in the sense of the English
expression "about eight days after," then the case is
so much the worse for the argument. Admitting
that it was the next first day, there is no implication
of any sabbatic character connected with the meet-
ing. The simple fact of the case being this : Thomas
being absent from the former meeting would not be-
lieve that Christ had risen. At this time Thomas is
present, and is convinced. The fact that Christ in-
structed them, proves nothing sabbatic, or celebra-
tive, for his next meeting (see next chapter,) was

70 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

upon a day when they were fishings when he in-
structed them more fully than at any time before.

These two pavssages constitute the entire array of
proof, so called, that Christ honored the first day of
the week, or taught its observance. And yet many
polemists, writing in fiivor of the change of the
Sabbath, refer to these passages as though they were
two among many which might be quoted if necessary.
If Christ taught the observance of Sunday, or the
change of the Sabbath, we are anxious to know it,
and to act accordingly. But something more than
these two passages, and the inferences which are put
into them — not drawn from 'them — is necessary to
form any found^ition for setting aside a plain com-
mand of the Decalogue.

TESTIMONY FROM THE BOOK OF ACTS.

The first day of the week is mentioned but once
in the book of Acts. Nevertheless two passages are
cited from the book, in support of Sunday obser-
vance. The first is as follows :

'• And when the day of Pentecost was now come, they
were all together in one place." Acts ii. 1.

Surely no one seeking proof for the change of the
Sabbath from apostolic example, would think of find-
ing it in this text. Nothing appears in the text or

TESTIMONY FROM THE BOOK OF ACTS 71

the contexts to indicate on what day of the week the
occurrences described, happened, or to show that
the passsage has the remotest connection with the
Sabbath question. Something must be read into
the text, in order to make any mention of tlie ques-
tion before us. How is this done ? After this man-
ner : '' The Pentecost fell on the first day oif the
week ; God poured out his spirit miraculously on
that day, thus sanctifying it, or, at least showing it
an especial ftivor." Let us see whether the major
premise of this proposition is true, viz. : that the
Pentecost fell on First day. It was a yearly feast,
falling on the fiftieth day reckoning from the day
following the Passover. Thus reckoning, this Pen-
tecost would have fallen on the first day of the week
if the Saviour had been crucified on the sixth day,
and the Passover been held, as is claimed, on the
seventh. We have already shown that such was not
the case ; hence the premise is incorrect in point of
fact.

We are by no means alone in claiming that this
Pentecost did not fall on Sunday. No one can con-
chide that it did fall on Sunday except by assuming
that Christ was crucified on Friday, and that that
Friday was the fourteenth day of the month Nisan.
This is a disputed point. Dr. Schaff" acknowledges

72 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

that with reference to the question whether this
Pentecost fell on the 8al)l)ath or on the Sunday,
" Opinions are much divided, and the arguments
almost equally balanced." Any one reading the opin-
ions of the various writers concerning the day of
Christ's death, and the consequent day of the Pente-
cost referred to in Acts second, will see how hopeless
is the confusion to which men rush who are obliged to
assume important points. The explanation which we
have given of the time of the resurrection, and the
length of time Christ should lie in the grave, both of
which are fixed by Matthew (xxviii. 1, and xii. 40),
makes complete harmony between Christ's prophetic
words, and their fulfilment. It also gives a complete
"Harmon}^ of the Gospels," without assuming any-
thing which is not absolutely stated in the Gospels,
except that there were two visits to the sepulchre.
The traditions and customs of the early church which
were developed in post-apostolic times, are of no val-
ue, if they do not agree with the inspired Records.
Hence we conclude that the Pentecost of Acts ii. 1,
did not fall upon the first day of the week. But
had it fallen upon the first day, there was nothing
in this demonstration of God's spirit which had ref-
erence to the day of the week. It was the Pentecost
which they met to celebrate, and while thus cele-

TESTIMONY FROM THE BOOK OF ACTS. 73

brating, the miraculous out pouring came. The
reason for choosing the Pentecost as the time at
which to manifest thus the power of the Spirit is
evident in the fact that thousands of devout men
from every huid were there, and being convinced of
the truth of Christianity, would carry that truth far
and wide as they returned home. There is another
significant fact which alone overthrows the popu-
lar claim. The writer of the passage says noth-
ing concerning the day of the week. Had it been
the first day, just adopted by the apostles as the
Christian Sabbath, it is not conceivable that so mark-
ed an occurrence in its favor would have been passed
in utter silence. This closes the proof (?) which is
offered to show that Christ by example or precept,
or the Holy Spirit by special sanction, taught or in
any way authorized the change of the Sabbath.

CHAPTER VII.

EXAMPLE OF THE APOSTLES.

The history of the doings and teachings of the
apostles is equally devoid of any proof in favor of
the popular theory. The book of Acts covers at
least thirty years of time after the resurrection of
Christ. This is the period during which it is claim-
ed that the change was going on under the direction
of the Apostles and the Holy Spirit. Two stubborn
facts oppose this cliiim.

1. The resurrection of Christ as the proof of his
Messiahship, is a prominent theme in the sermons
which the apostles preached during this period.
This was especially dwelt upon in the sermon of
Peter at Pentecost, and many times thereafter.

Such preaching could not avoid the discussion of
the change of the Sal^bath, as based upon the resur-
rection, if the chanfife had been then cfoinof on. This
fact is the more significant since Luke, the writer of
the ])ook of Acts, is especially careful to notice any
compliance with existing customs. Notice the fol-
lowing passages from his Gospel :
74

EXAMPLE OF THE APOSTLES. 75

" According to the custom of the priest's office, his lot
was to enter into the temple of the Lord and burn in-
cense." ^ " And when the parents brought in the child
Jesus that they might do concerning him after the custom
of the law." ^ " And he came to Nazareth, where he had
been brought up, and he entered, as his custom was, into
the synagogue on the Sabbath-day."^ ''And he came
out and went, as his custom was, unto the Mount of
Olives."*

In the book of Acts, he says :

'* And on the Sabbath-day, we went forth without the
gate by a river side, where we supposed there was a place
of prayer." 5 "They came to Thessalonica, where was
a synagogue of the Jews; and Paul, as his custom was,
went in unto them." ^

These passages show that it was characteristic of
Luke to notice compliance with existing customs,
even when no especial interest was attached to the
fact. How, then, can we suppose that the establish-
ment of a new custom, so important, and so full of
interest to the narrative, could be passed over in
silence.

The single passage in which a reference is made

to the first day of the week, in the book of Acts,

is in the twentieth chapter, and seventh verse. It is

as follows :

li. 9. 2ii. 27. 3iv. 16.

4xxii.39. 5xvi. 13. 6xvii. 1,2.

76 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

" And upon the first day of the week, when we were
gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with
them, intending to depart on the morrow and prolonged
his speech until midnight."

It is claimed that this passage indicates a well-un-
derstood custom of sabbatizing on the first day of
the week. But there are the same difficulties here
as in the cases before examined. Luke is a careful
writer, and often speaks of established customs. The
account in this place is a minute one. In the third
verse, and those following it, we are told how Paul
dwelt three months in Greece, who accompanied him,
and where they were from, who came with him on
the voyage toward Troas, certain of whom went
before, while Paul and others of the party, Luke in-
cluded, remained at Philippi until after the days of
unleavened bread and then set out for Troas where
they arrived after five da3"s' journey and remained
seven days. The evening before they set out for
Assos, the inhabitants came in ; and so follows the
minute account of the meeting and its attendant cir-
cumstances. Now could a writer so minute in unim-
portant matters, pass over in silence the fiict that
they there celebrated the new institution of the
resurrection day, had such been the case; espe-
cially when the day is mentioned? This is the more

EXAMPLE OF THE APOSTLES. 77

wonderful since he nowhere else even mentions the
first day of the week in any manner whatever.
According to the popular theory, this passage refers
only to the evening. If the day was observed by
them as a Sabbath there nmst have been religious
services during the day, and these would naturally
be more prominent than the evening service ; why
then should so careful and exact a writer pass over
the more important features of the case in silence,
and leave the less important features with only a
vague reference. Such a claim does great injustice
to the scholarship of Luke, saying nothing of his in-
spiration.

All this is upon the popular supposition that the
meeting was held on what is now called Sunday
evening, and that the breaking of bread was a " cele-
bration of the Lord's Supper." There are impera-
tive reasons for rejecting both these interpretations.
According to the Jewish method of reckoning time,
which is everywhere used by the writers of the Bible,
all of whom were Jews, this meeting must have been
on the evening after the Sabbath, on what is now
called " Saturday '' evening, and hence Paul and his
companions traveled all the next day. If to avoid
this dilemma, the Roman reckoning be supposed,

78 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

then the main item of the meeting, viz. : the " Break-
ing of bread," took place after midnight, and hence
on the second day of the week. Either horn of this
dilemma destroys whatever of inferential evidence
this passage might otherwise be supposed to afford.
The time when this meeting was held is given by
Conybear and Howson as follows :

"The labors of the early days of the week that was
spent at Troas, are not related to us ; but conceruiug the
last day we have a narrative which enters into details
with all the minuteness of one of the gospel histories.
It was the evening which succeeded the Jewish Sabbath.
On Sunday morning the vessel was about to sail." ^

The phrase KXaaac dprov, which is translated, "to
break bread " is repeatedly used to designate the
eating of a common meal. It is thus used in Acts ii.
46, where the forty-fifth and forty-seventh verses show
that these were but ordinary meals. So also in Acts
xxvii. 37, the same terms denote the common meal
of a company of two hundred and seventy-six. So
far as the language or the circumstances decide, it
may have been a common meal, or a love feast, or
the Lord's Supper. In either case there is nothing
in the fact to affect the day. The farewell meeting
is sufficient ground for all that occurred, and the
1 Life and Epistles of St. Paul, chap. xx.

EXAMPLE or THE APOSTLES. ' 79

miraculous restoration of the young man, together
with the farewell meeting, give abundant reason for
placing the incident on record. We have therefore
no hesitancy in adopting the conclusion that the
meeting spoken of in Acts twentieth and seventh,
was an informal o-atherino^ of Paul and his travelinjr
companions, with more or less of those Avho dwelt at
Troas, on the evening after the Sabbath. And hence
that Paul and his party traveled all day on the fol-
lowing first day of the week.

Ellicott supports this view, in the following words :

" It seems probable that in churches which were so
largely organized on the framework of the Jewish syna-
gogue, and contained so many Jews and proselytes who
had been familiar with its usages, the Jewish mode of
reckoning would still be kept, and that as the Sabbath
ended at sunset the first day of the week would begin at
sunset on what was then or soon afterwards known as
Saturday. In this case the meeting of which we read
would be held on what we should call the Saturday even-
ing and the feast would present some analogies to the
prevalent Jewish custom of eating bread and drinking
wine at that time in honor of the departing Sabbath.
' Ready to depart on the morroiv.' It may perhaps seem
strange to some, taking the view maintained in the previ-
ous note, that the apostle and his companions should thus
purpose to travel on a day to which we have transferred
so many of the restrictions of the Jewish Sabbath. But

80 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

it must be remembered (1) that there is no evidence that
St. Paul thought of them as so transferred, but rather the
contrary. (Gal. iv. 10. Col. ii. 16.) and (2) that the
ship in which his friends had taken their passage was
not likely to alter its day of starting to meet their scru-
ples even had these scruples existed." ^

Dr. Smith speaks of this service as follows^ after
showing how fully the customs of the earlier churches
grew out of the synagogue, both as regards forms
and times of service :

''It was a Jewish custom to end the Sabbath with a
feast, in which they did honor to it as to a parting king.
The feast was held in the synagogue. A cup of wine
over which a special blessing had been spoken, was handed
around. It is obvious that so long as the apostles and
their followers continued to use the Jewish mode of reckon-
ing, i. e., so long as they fraternized with their brethren
of the stock of Abraham, this would coincide in point of
time with their huirvov on the ^rs^ day of the week." '-^

In conclusion we ask the reader to contrast this
one meagre and indefinite reference to the first day
of the week in all the history of the doings of the
Apjostles for thirty years after Christ, with the re-
peated recognition of the Sabbath in the book of Acts,
and to decide in the light of the inspired Word,

1 Commentary, vol ii., p. 138.

2Bible Dictionary, Art. "Synagogue."

THE EPISTLES. 81

what the example of the Apostles was concerning the
Sabbath and the Sunday.

THE EPISTLES.

Turning to the epistles the reader will find the same
almost absolute silence concerning the first day of
the week. In all the New Testament epistles there
is but one reference to it, and this does not refer to
it as the Sabbath, or as commemorative of the resur-
rection, or as in any way holy or sacred. Had the
change been going on, had the first day been pressed
upon the attention of the converts, and demands
made for its observance, much instruction would have
been requisite to bring them — especially the Hebrews,
to obedience. It is against all logic and all experi-
ence to think that such a change could have been
made during such times, and nothing be said con-
cerning it. Here is the lone passage :

" Now concerning the collection for the Saints, as I
gave order to the churches of Galatia, so also do ye.
Upon the first day of the week, let each one of you lay
by him in store as he may prosper, that no collections be
made when I come." ^

This is claimed by some as an order for a public
collection, and hence indicative of a public meeting
on that day. The claim is only a far-fetched infer-

1 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2.
6

82 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

ence, and is shown to be unfounded by the expres-
sion, "lay by Iiini in store." Tlie text contains no
suggestion of a public gathering, but the exact op-
posite. It is the work of the theologian to put such
an interpretation onto the passage, and not the work
of the scholar to draw it from the passage. In sup-
port of this are the following facts :

The English rendering, '' let each one of y^i\ lay
by him in store," clearly indicates a personal work
on the part of each man by himself. The Greek is
equally plain, and, if possible, stronger. It is as
follows :

Kara fxlav craffiSdrayv eKaaro^ vfjLcov irap eavro)
TiOerw, 6r](TavpL^Q)V 6, tl av evoBcorac.

It would be difficult to frame a sentence which
would express the idea of personal action by one's
self, more exactly. It is literally, "each one of you,
by himself, lay away, treasuring up." The Latin is :

" Per unam Sabbatorura uniisquisqne vestrum apud se
reponat recondens, quod bene successerit," etc.

Literally, "Each one of you at his own house lay
up, putting away," etc.

Tyndale says : "Let every one off you put a syde
at home and laye uppe."

The Syriac Peshito, reads as follows : "Let every
one of you lay aside and preserve at home."

THE EPISTLES. 83

To this the following may be added :

Three French versions read, " at his own house at
home." Luther, " Bij himself at home.'' Tlie Dutch ver-
sion the same. The ItaUan version, *^ In his own presence
at home.'' The Spanish, "i?^ his oivn house." Portu-
guese, " With himself." Swedish, •' Near himself ." The
Douay Bible, " Let every one of you put apart with him-
self." Beza, ^' At home." Kotherham, '' Let each one of
you put by itself., treasuring up" etc.

Meyer says irap kavro) nOeTw cannot refer to the
laying down of money in the assembly. His trans-
hition is : " Let him lay up in store at home ichatever
he succeeds in, i. e., if he has success in anything, let
him lay it up, i. e., ivhat he has gained thereby, in
order that oratherino:s be not made when I shall come."
(On Cor. voL ii. p. 111.)

By such an array of scholarship the vague infer-
ence on which the common notion rests, is at once
destroyed. The direction given by Paul is that each
man should begin the work of the week by putting
aside as much as he was able, for the poor saints at
Jerusalem, in order that each having thus decided
what he could do, there need be no delay about the
matter when Paul should arrive. This order was
only temporary, and for a specific purpose. More
than this, it was only five years before that Paul
organized the Corinthian church while he was observ-

84 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

ing the Sabbath. Thus does this passage prove too
weak to support even an inference in favor of a
change of the Sabbath.

The foregoing conclusion is further supported
by the fact that attending to gifts for the poor on the
first day of the week was directly in the line of the
customs of the synagogue. Witness the following :

*' The abns for the support of the poor members of the
congregation were put into the alms chest before prayers ;
and on Sabbath evenings what had been collected,
was apportioned to the poor for the entire week. Some-
times after the usual collection in the synagogue, there
was an extraordinary one made by the Chazzau, for some

particular purpose As this was usually done on the

Sabbath day (when the Jews do not handle money), each
person by word of mouth bound himself to the minister of
the s^Miagogue for a certain sum which he paid the fol-
lowing week.

" We may trace the following points of agreement be-
tween the church and the synagogue, as to the collection
and distribution of alms. In the synagogue alms were
collected for a two-fold purpose ; for the poor members
of the congregation, and for the poor brethren in Judea.
The same custom prevailed in the early Cliristian cluirch.
In the synagogue the alms though set apart on the Sab-
bath were not paid until the first day of the week.

" This superstitious custom of not handling money on
the Sabbath is very ancient ; thus Pliilo praises the Em-
peror Augustus because in his anxiety that the Jews

THE EPISTLES. 85

should be partakers of his bounty, he ordered, that if the
day of distribution happened to be on the Jewish Sabbath
it should be bestowed on the following day."^

The above shows that Paul ordered the Corinthians
to do what they had been accustomed to do in the
case of "special collections," varying his order in
only one particular, viz., that instead of paying it
into the treasury of the synagogue on the first day
of the week, they were to lay it up at home until
such time as he might arrive.

The attendant circumstances all strengthen the con-
clusion that this was in keeping with the synagogue
practices. Paul wrote this first letter to the Co-
rinthians in the Spring of 57 a. d.^

He planted the church at Corinth in 53, a. d.^

Like all the earlier churches, it sprang up in and
around the synagogue, and among Jews and Jewish
Proselytes — Acts xviii. 1-11 ; Paul keeping the Sab-
bath meanwhile, and in all his stay of eighteen
months never uttering a word about the obsoleteness
of the Sabbath, or of the new institution of Sunday.
Moreover, the advocates of Sunday observance all
claim that the change was a matter of slow growth,

^The Synagogue and the Church, condensed from the Latin of
Vitringa, by Joshua L. Bernhard, London, 1842, pp. 76, 166, 175.
2Schaff Ch. Hist., Vol. 1, p. 750, Rev. Ed.
3 Fisher, " Beginnings of Christianity," p. 579.

86 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

lest prejudice might be aroused. It is therefore
wholly illogical to believe that icithin (fco years and
one half from the time Paul left Corinth Jifter the
establishing of the church, so great a change had
taken place, so adverse to the i)ractice of the apos-
tle while there, and amid the startling silence which
kept Paul from speaking, and Luke from writing any
word concerning Sunday. The only natural exegesis
of the passage, in the light of the surrounding facts
is, that the order to lay aside tit home this special
contribution, was a slight modification of the ordin-
ary custom, Avhich the circumstances made necessary.

One more passage remains to complete the survey
of proof claimed from the New Testment, Rev. i. 10,
"I was in the spirit on the" Lord's day." The claim
is made that the " Lord's day" refers to the first day
of the wecdv, which presupposes that the day was
then observed as a Sal)bath, or at least as a day of
reliii'ious meetimr. The only evidence offered, is the
presumption that it was thus used then, because it is
met with (for the first time) in the writings of one
of the Christian Fathers about 170 a. d, and that it
afterward came to be used to designate the first day.
But the fact that John uses the term nowhere else

"the lord's day." 87

in all his writings, and that he uses it here in only
an incidental manner, and that the writino^s of the
Fathers down to the year 170, of which there are
several fragments, make no mention of it, proves
conclusively, that in whatever sense elohn used the
term, he did not apply it to the first day of the week.
It is also an undisputed fact that when the use of the
term became somewhat general, in the third and
fourth centuries, no writer attributes its use to the
fact that it had been used in the Revelation. This
idea is strongly supported by the date of the book,
wdiich modern scholarship places at least a quarter
of a century before the date of John's Gospel.

Accepting this modern date, 68 to 70 a. d. before
the destruction of Jerusalem, ^ we have more than
a quarter of a century elapsing, during which time it
is assumed that Sunday observance, as the "Lord's
day " was making rapid strides, and yet in his latest
writings, John uses only the term first day of the
week, for Sunday, and uses that onl}^ incidentally in
connection with the account of the announcinof of the
resurrection of Christ. Every law of internal evi-
dence forbids the conclusion that he used the term
"Lord's day," as referring to Sunday in the earlier

1 "See Beginnings of Christianity," by Prof. Geo. P. Fisher,
p. 534, seq.

OO SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

writing, and does not use it a quarter of a century
later when the term and the day, as is claimed, had
grown to be common and universal. The same argu-
ment holds good of the Book of Acts, completed 62
or 63 A. D. and including much historj^ which de-
mands some record concerning the day, and the terms
by which it was known, if the popular notion be
correct, and yet this history mentions the day but
once, and that only as the "first day of the week."

Whatever the phrase may mean, there is not in it,
or its contexts, evidence that it refers to any day of
the week. Like all the rest of the passages referred
to in favor of Sunday, it has no point or meaning
until what men seek to prove is first assumed.

If the expression means any day of the week, it
means the seventh day, which the Bible declares to
be the Sabbath of the Lord. This idea comports
well with the Jewish character of the Revelation.

If it be not a corruption of the text — made in a
book which was late in coming into the Canon — the
term Lord's day evidently refers to the '' Great and
notable Day of the Lord," the time of his coming
and judgments, which form the sul^ject matter of
the Revelation. A literal rendering of the expres-
sion supports this idea — "I was in the Spirit in the
Lordly day, " or "the day pertaining to the Lord."

"the lord's day." 89

We are now prepared to sum up the case as re-
o-ards the example of Christ and his apostles in
observing the first day of the week.

Six passages are quoted in favor of such obser-
vance. Only three of these passages mention the
first day of the week in any manner. Neither of
them speaks of it as sabbatic, or as commemorative
of any event, or sacred, or to be regarded above
other days, and it is only by vague and illogical
inferences that either of them is made to produce a
shadow of proof for such a change. Concerning the
other three, it is only supposed by the advocates of
the popular theory, that they in some way refer to
the first day. To this therefore, does the "argument
from example" come, when carefully examined.
The New Testament never speaks of, or hints at, a
chano-e of the Sabbath ; it contains no notice of any
commemorative or sabbatic observance of Sunday.
It does tell of the repeated and continued observance
of the Sabbath by Christ and his Apostles. Will
the reader please examine the Bible to see whether
these things are so. Sunday observance is a myth,
as far as the Bible is concerned, and the theory of a
"change of the Sabbath by divine authority," had its
birth with English Puritanism less than three hun-
dred years ago.

APPENDIX A.

THE ORIGIN OF THE WEEK.

When did the week originate ? This is an impor-
tant question, both as a fact in history, and as a
factor in the Sabbath question. The origin of the
week and of the Sabbath which closes it, thus estab-
lishing its limit, must be contemporaneous. If the /
week antedates Judaism, and existed outside the
Hebrew nation, the Sabbath is thereby shown to be )
universal rather than "Jewish." If it antedates
Moses, his legislation and leadership, it is not
"Mosaic." If the week which antedates Moses and
existed among the nations that flourished before the
time of the Hebrew nation is identical with the

lelirew and the Christian week, then it is certain
:hat there was no change of the week or of the Sab-

)ath when the Israelites left Egypt, as certain men
claim, who are more visionary than scholarly. Thus
the existence of a primeval and universal week,
identical with our own, settles at least three phases
of the Sabbath question, without appeal to the Bible.
90

ORIGIN OF THE WEEK. 91

We give below the results of the latest research on
this point, and draw certain conclusions thereon :

BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.

"The science of Assyria, like most things else, was
derived from Accad. A large number of its technical
terms were borrowed from the Turanian, and continued to
the last, an enduring monument of the debt owed by the
Semite to his predecessor. At the same time, he did not
remain a mere imitator ; science received a development
in his hands which might have been looked for in vain
from a Turanian race. First and foremost comes the as-
tronomy, for which Babylonia was so famous in the ancient
world. Its beginning goes back to the time when the Ac-
cadians had not descended from their mountain fastnesses.
The zenith was fixed above Elam, and not above Bab-
ylonia, and the ' Mountain of the East,' the primitive
home of the race was supposed to support the firmament.
The shrines on the topmost terraces of the temples were
used also as observatories. Ur had its royal observatory,
and so probably had the other cities of Chaldea ; in As-
syria they existed at Assur, Nineveh, and Arbela, and
the astronomers, royal, had to send in their reports to the
king twice a month. At an early date the stars were
numbered and named ; but the most important astronom-
ical work of the Accadians was the formation of a calen-
dar. This came after the division of the heavens into
degrees, since the twelve months (of thirty days each)
were named after the zodiacal signs, and would seem to
belong to about 2200, B. C. Somewhat strangely, the

92 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

Accadian calendar appears to have passed to the As-
syrians (and through them to the Jews) through the
medium of the Aramaeans, . . . The week of seven da3^s
was in use from an early period, indeed, the names
which we still give to the days can be traced to Ancient
Babylonia; and the seventh day was one of sulum, or
'rest.'"^

The Library of Universal Knoidedge bears the
following testimony :

"The dominant people in Babylonia in the earliest
times were the Accad or Accadians. They had come
originally from the mountains of Elam to the east of
the Tigris, and hence their name Accad, which means
' highlanders.' They brought with them the art of cunei-
form writing as well as other arts and sciences, especially
astronomy. It is in the Turanian language of these
Accadians that the cuneiform inscriptions of Babylonia
are written for many centuries. And when the Semitic
tongue had become predominant, Accadian, now a dead
language, was to the Assyrians what Latin has been to the
nations of modern Europe. Assyrian scholars translated
the Accadian literature into their own language and their
technical and sacred terms were borrowed from it. Every
day is bringing to light new proofs of the influence of
these Accadians upon the civilization of the Semitic na-
tions, and through them upon that of Europe. Greece, it
is well known, derived its system of weights and measures
from the Babylonian standard ; but these have proved to

lEncyc. Britannica, Art. '* Babylonia," vol. 3, p. 165.

OKIGIN OF THE WEEK. 93

be of Accadian origin. The Greek mina or mna^ the
fundamental unit of the Greek monetary system, is the
m.aneh of Carchemish, and maneh is found to be, not a
Semitic, but an Accadian word, showing the origin of the
system. The sexagesimal division of the circle, the
signs of the zodiac, a week of seven days^ named as we
now name them^ and the seventh a day of rest, are all Ac-
cadian. Every large city had its public library. In the
royal library of a Babylonian monarch, Sargon (about
2000 B. C.), every tablet was numbered so that the
reader had only to write down the number of the tablet he
wanted and it was handed him by the librarian. Among
the multifarious subjects of this extensive literature, are
hymns to the gods strikingly like the Hebrew Psalms, and
in a long mythological poem there is an episode giving an
account of the deluge almost identical with that of Gene-
sis, only more detailed."

The Presbyterian Revieiv for October, 1882, con-
tains an article upon " The Sabbath and the Cunei-
form Inscriptions," by Prof. Francis Brown, from
which the following is extracted :

'' In the very first section of the book of Genesis (ii. 2.),
God is represented as resting on the seventh day, and
in Exodus (xx. 11), the command to observe the Sabbath
is based upon God's so resting : Now it became evident,
as soon as men were able to study the fundamental
notions of the Babylonians and Assyrians, with the help
of contemporary documents, that the number seven was
one of great significance to them. Oppert found in an

94 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

Astronomical Tablet a connection between the sun, moon,
and five planets, and the days of the week. And Schra-
der argued at length for the week of seven days as origin-
al with the Babylonians. But still earlier than this,
George Smith had made an important discovery. He
says, ' In the year 1869, I discovered among other things
a curious religious calendar of the Assyrians, in which
every month is divided into four weeks, and the seventh
days or Sabbaths, are marked out as days on wiiich no
work should be undertaken.' * In another place he tells
us, more explicitly, that the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and
28th days are described by an idiogram equivalent to suhi
or sulum, meaning rest. The calendar contains lists of
works forbidden to be done on these days, which evi-
dently correspond to the Sabbath of tlie Jews.

"In 1875 appeared the fourth volume of the Cunei-
form Inscriptions of Western Asia, containing some calen-
dar texts, and in connection with these, Sayce took
occasion to confirm the statements of Smith, and gave
a translation of the requirements for the seventh day.
Here we find also, the first mention of Boscawen's discov-
ery that Sabbattu is in one place explained as uminuhUbhi,
' a day of rest of heart.' In the following year Sayce
published a translation of the whole knowledge, or de-
scription of the days, of the intercalary month Elul,
calling special attention to the restrictions imposed for
each seventh day. Since then there have been repeated
allusions to the ' Babylonian Sabbath,' and some employ-
ment of it by a too hasty Apologetics. . . .

" Oppert was the first to call attention to a cuneiform
tablet containing a list of stars, seven in number, con-

ORIGIN OF THE WEEK. 95

nected each with a deity, the whole list corresponding to
the deities whose names our days bear ; the list concludes,
according to him, with the words ' These are the seven
chiefs of the days of the week {masi).' But this trans-
lation of masi was not accompanied by any proof of its
correctness, and Schrader, who took up the general idea
of Oppert, wisely sought to lay a firmer foundation. He
starts from the position that the Arabians owed the seven
day week to the Jews, and that among these and their
ancestors, the old Hebrews, it had been known from time
immemorial. That the Hebrews did not invent it, ap-
pears from the knowledge of it among the ancient Ara-
mieans as well, who can hardly have derived it from the
Hebrews ; that the Hebrews learned it from the Ara-
maeans is contrary to the Hebrew conception of its
remote antiquity among themselves. They could not have
learned it in Egvpt, for there the ' week ' was ten days
long. Thus we are pointed back to the early home of the
Canaanites (Hebrews and Phenicians) in Babylonia.
After thus noticing the historical probability, Schrader
then brings in the inscription which Oppert had translated,
laying stress upon the order and names of the gods to
whom the stars were said to belong : Shamosh^ sun ; Shin^
moon ; Nergal, Mars, Zivis, (Ti'v) ; Neho, Mercury,
Woden ; Merodach, Jupiter, Thor ; Ishtar^ Venus, Freia ;
Ada?', Saturn. The inference is that the names of the
seven week days originated in Babylonia ; but if so, the
seven-day week must have existed previously to the as-
signment of the names, and thus we have an explanation
of its early appearance among the Hebrews, and also of
their habit of numbering instead of naming the days ;

96 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

for only in comparatively late times (from a period not
long, it may be, before the Christian era) , does it appear
that the names of the days were transmitted from people to
people along with the week."

The following letter from Prof. Sayce, Deputy
Professor of Comparative Philology, Oxford, En-
gland, dated Queen's College, Nov. 22, 1875, gives
the facts above referred to, in detail, as follows :

" THE CHALDEAN ORIGIN OF THE SABBATH."

"It is now some time since first Mr. Oppert, and
then more fully Dr. Schrader, ^ pointed out the Baby-
lonian origin of the week. Seven was a sacred number
among the Accadians, and their lunar months were at an
early epoch divided into periods of seven days each. The
days were dedicated to the sun and moon and five planets,
and to the deities who presided over these. The northern
Semites borrowed this division of time, and carried it
with them on their migration to the West. In one of the
newly found fragments which recount the Chaldean Ver-
sion of the Creation the appointment of the stars called
' leaders of the week,' is expressly mentioned, and the
same fragment records how the moon was made ' to go
forth from the heaven on the seventh day.'

" Four years ago Mr. Geo. Smith drew attention to the

fact that the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days of the month

were termed days of ^idum or ' rest,' on which certain

works were forbidden to be done ; and that the expression

i Studien and Kritiken, 1874.

ORIGIN OF THE WEEK, 97

' day of rest ' was but the Assyrian translation of the
older Accadian equivalent which signified ' dies nefastusJ
Now a hemerology of the month of the intercalatory Elul,
lithographed in the fourth volume of the Cuneiform In-
scriptions of Western Asia, gives what we may call a
Saints Calendar for the month, with notes upon the religious
duties required from the king on each day. The memo-
randum attached to the seventh day, I translate as fol-
lows :

" The seventh day, the festival of Merodach and Zir-
panitu : a holy day. A Sabbath for the ruler of great
nations. Sodden flesh (and) cooked fruit he may not
eat. His clothes he may not change. (New) garments
he may not put on. Sacrifices he may not offer. The
king his chariot may not drive. In royal fashion he may
not legislate. A place of assembly for the Judge he may
not establish. Medicine for his ailments of body he may
not apply. ' To make a measured square (translated also,
To make a sacred spot^' which is much more natural and
to be preferred) it is suitable. During the (ensuing)
night, in the presence of Merodach and Istar^ the king
should erect his altar, make a sacrifice, and lifting up his
hand, worship (in) the high place of the God.

" The same memorandum is attached to the 14th, 21st,
and 28th daj-s of the month, except that the 14th was
consecrated to Beltis and Nergal, the 21st to the moon and
the sun, and the 28th to Hea and Nergal, whose rest day
it is expressly stated to be, the word being written in
Accadian. On the 21st, moreover, it was ' white gar-
ments,' which might not be put on, and the sacrifices to
the gods had to be performed at dawn. 'J he 19th day
7

98 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

was also a Sabbath, the ' white day ' of the Goddess
Gula. I have exphiined in ray monograph upon the Bab}^-
louian Astronomy (in the Transactions of the society of
Biblical Areh^eology, 1874, p. 207) how this came to be
the case.

" Even the word Sahbath itself was not unknown to the
Assyrians. Mr. Boscawen has pointed out to me that it
occurs, under the form Sabbattu in W. A. I. 2 : 32. 16,
where it is explained as a ' day of rest for the heart.' "

The explanation concerning the 19tli day of the
month, to which Prof. Sayce refers, is as follows :

" The months were lunar and were divided into two
lunations ; and the days on which the quarters of the
moon began, as well as the beginning of the second luna-
tion were called days of Stdum or ' rest,' on which certain
works were forl)idden." '

Other authorities speak as follows :

" Among the Semitic nations, which as far as our in-
formation goes, seem to have had the computation by
weeks from the earliest period, the Arabs stand foremost ;
and, up to this day, count their days by sevens, beginning
and ending with the sunset previous to each new day ;
and they count them instead of giving them special names,
except Friday, which is called ' Day of Assembly,' or
Aruba, Eve (of the Jewish Sabbath) . Slavonians, Lithua-
nians and Finns also count their days from Sunday in-
stead of giving them names." -

1 Transactions of the Society of BibHcal Arcliteology, Vol. 3,
p. 207.
2 Chamber's Encyclopedia, Article "Week."

ORIGIN OF THE WEEK. 99

" It (the week) was found as a civil institution in the
very earliest times among the Hindoos, Persians, Assyr-
ians, and Egyptians. But the Jews were the only nation
with which the week had a religious signification. With
the Egyptians, Assja-ians, etc., the seventh day was sim-
ply a day of recreation ; with the Jews it was a day of
worship, the Sabbath." ^

In tlie article on Sunday, Johnson gives the fol-
lowing definition :

" Sunday [Sax. Sunnan Darg. Lat. Dies Soils. In
the Sanscrit and other languages of India, the first day
of the week has the same signification]."

In the Conteinporary Review, for June, 1879, the
astronomer, K. A. Proctor, argues that the moon
was probably the first measure of the month; also,
that the month and week were used as convenient
standards for measuring m business matters, as seen
in the case of Jacob and Laban. So he thinks busi-
ness and religion combined to establish the week.
Mr. Proctor adds :

-' Be this however as it may, it seems abundantly clear
that quite early in the progress of astronomy, the more
scientific and observant must have recognized the unfitness
of the week as an astronomical measure of time. With
the disappearance of the week from astronomical systems
(the lunar quarters being retained, however) the week

1 Johnson's New Universal Encyclopedia, Article " Week."

100 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

may be considered to have become what it is now for
ourselves, a civil, and in some sense a religious time
measure."

This period Mr. Proctor places as early as 2170
B. C.

In a later work, Prof. Proctor supports the an-
tiquity of the week on scientific grounds, in the
strongest manner. He sets Revelation aside, and at-
tempts to account for all forms of time measurement
on an astrological and astronomic basis. He makes
a long a priori argument to show how these influences
wrought to develop the week as the first time meas-
ure, and how all succeeding divisions of time followed
through the same influences, combined with the re-
ligious element. Developing this argument he says :

*' In the first place, I think it will appear that some di-
vision of the month analogous to the week must have
been sugggested as a measure of time long before the
year. Commonly the year is taken as either the first and
most obvious of all time measure, or else as only second
to the da^^ But in its astronomical aspect the j'-ear is
not a very obvious division of time. I am not here
speaking, be it understood, of the exact determination
of the length of the year. That, of necessity, was a
work requiring much time, and could only have been suc-
cessfully achieved by astronomers of considerable skill.
I am referring to the commonplace year, the ordinary
progression of those celestial phenomena which mark the

OPaGIN OF THE WEEK. 101

changes of the seasons, . . . But no definite way of
noting the progress of the year by the movements of the
sun or stars would probably have suggested itself until
some time after the moon's motions had been used as a
means of measuring time.

" The lunar changes, on the other hand, are very strik-
ing and obvious ; they can be readily watched, and they
are marked by easily determinable stages. It appears
more easy, says Whewell, and in earlier stages of civiliza-
tion (it was) more common, to count time by 77100ns than
by years." ^

In developing his argument, Prof. Proctor con-
cludes that lunar astronomy with the week a,s the
chief measure of time prevailed a long time before
sold}' astronomy and the y^ear were known. He
thinks that the change came at a point where the
origin of the science of astronomy has been assumed
to be, with the Chaldeans, and that" As to the epoch
of the real beginning of astronomy we have no means
of judging." The Chaldean epoch, when the solar
year came in, he claims, could not have been the
beginning or even during the infancy of the science.
This epoch Prof. Proctor places at about 2170 B^ C.
So that, scientifically considered, the origin of the
week is much earlier than that date.

The chapter on the " Origin of the Week " is fol-
lowed by one on " Saturn and the Sabbath of the
iTbe Great Pyramid, pp. 204, 206. London: 1883.

102 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

Jews." In the former chapter (p. 217), Mr Proctor
claims that, " The earliest record we have of liirino^
is that contained in Genesis xxix," when the service
of Jacob with Laban is regulated hy the Aveek and
month. Still, with an inconsistency not wholly un-
common, he claims that the Sabbath was borrowed
by the Hebrews from the Egyptians and Chaldeans.
He says :

'•Assigning the origin of the first Jewish observance
of the Sabbath to the time of the Exodus, we are forced
to the conclusion that the custom of keeping each seventh
day as a day of rest, was derived from the people amongst
whom the Jews had been sojourning more than two hun-
dred years. It is unreasonable to suppose that Moses
would have added to the almost overwhelming difficulties
which he had to encounter in dealing with the obstinate
people he led from Egypt, the task of establishing a new
festival. Such a task is at all times difficult, but at the
time of the Exodus it would have been hopeless to under-
take it. The people were continually rebelling against
Moses, because he sought to turn them from the worship
of the gods of Egypt, in whom they were disposed to
trust. It was no time to establish a new festival, unless
one could be devised which should correspond with the
customs they had learned in Egypt. Moses would seem
indeed to have pursued a course of compromise. Oppos-
ing manfully the worship of the Egyptian gods, he adopt-
ed, nevertheless, Egyptian ceremonies and festivals,
only so far modifying them that (as he explains them)

ORIGIN OF THE WEEK. 103

they ceased to be associated with the worship of false
gods.

"We have also historical evidence as to the non-
Jewish origin of the observance of the seventh da}^ as
decisive of the arguments I have been considering. For
Philo JLidaeus, Josephus, Clement of Alexandria and oth-
ers, speak plainly of the week as not of Jewish origin,
but common to all the Oriental nations." ^

In ftirther corroboration of the fact that the pri-
meval week was closed by the Sal)])ath, in the same
order as at present, ]\Ir. Proctor snys :

' • I must remark, however, that this point is by no
means essential for the main argument of this paper,
which is in reality based on the unquestioned fact that
amongst all the nations which used the week as a division
of time, the seventh day was associated with the planet
Saturn." ^

]Mr. Proctor also lalDors to show that all the Jew-
ish festivals were the product of Sabaism and astrol-
ogy as they prevailed among the Pagan nations,
and that Moses developed the Jew ish system as a
general compromise between his own religious no-
tions and the practices w^hich the Hebrew^s had be-
come accustomed to in Egypt. He ignores the
Patriarchal period and its influence. In short, he

^ pp. 248—9.

2 Pyramid, etc., p. 254,

104 SABBATH AND SUXDAY.

accepts the facts concerning the primeval and uni-
versal character of the week, but attempts to account
for it on non-Biblical grounds. We deem it far
more logical, and the only conclusion consistent with
Christian faith, that the week was established at the
earliest period by the Sabbath as the sacred time-
measure. The Patriarchal and Hebrew line of hu-
manity retained the true conception, and the true
naming of the days, that is b}^ numerals. The other
lines of humanity drifted aAva}^ from this j^rinieval
revelation, adopted the worship of the heavenly
bodies, and named the days of the week after the
planets. They preserved the original order of the
days, and hence whenever the two lines of human
life touch each other in history, God's Sabbath and
Saturn's day coincide. In the apostatizing of the
nations, sun worship and the sun god became the
great rival of Jehovah, and the sun's day, for thou-
sands of years, has been the one great rival of God's
Sabbath. But the ripening centuries are hastening
the time when God and his Sabbath will be vindicated,
and re-enthroned, and not least among the influences
at work toward this end are the deductions of science
and history, which prove the primeval and universal
existence of the week, in its present and unbroken
order.

ORIGIN OF THE WEEK. 105

The Philological Museum assigns the names of
the days of the week to the mythology of the Scandi-
navians, the astrology of the Egyptians and Chal-
deans, and the mythology of the Romans, combined.
It also states that " Saturn's day was always con-
nected with the Jewish Sabbath," Avhich it is claimed
is not absurd, because plainly the week was ancient.^

Ideler, thinks the Romans saw some connection
between the Jewish Sabbath and their Saturn-alia.
He also recognizes the existence of the Sabbath, the
seventh day, among the Gentile nations before the
Roman era.^

A work by John Brady, London, entitled Clavis
Calendarium, also recognizes the universal and
primeval character of the week.^

These testimonies combine to show that the week,
as now numbered and named, existed from the re-
motest period yet reached among the Accadians,
Babylonians, and Assyrians.

INDIA.

There is abundant testimony to the existence of the
week among the people of India also, where perhaps
the astronomical element was most strongly marked.

iVol. 1, p. 28

2 Chronology, vol. 2, pp. 175, 178.

3 Vol. 1, pp. 95, 96.

106 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

Mr. Wilson inclines to the opinion that the knowl-
edge of the week may have originated in India. AVe
think that it did not originate in Egypt, but with the
Accadian ancestors of the Babylonians. The fol-
lowing are Mr. Wilson's words :

" The specification of the days of the week by the
names of the seven planets, is, as it is well known, famil-
iar to the Hindus. The origin of this is not very precisely
ascertained, as it was unknown to the Greeks, and not
adopted by the Romans until a later period. It is com-
monly ascribed to the Egyptians and Babylonians, but on
no very sufficient authority, and the Hindus appear to
have at least as good a title as any other people to the
invention.

. . . Aditya-Vara, Ravi-Vara, or Rabi-Bar. in the bar-
barized vernacular. Dies Solis, Sunday is one of every
seven. This is somewhat different from the Seventh
Tithi, or lunar da}^ ; but a sort of sanctity is or was
attached even to Sunday, and fasting on it was considered
obligatory or meritorious. . . . It is impossible to avoid
inferring from the general chai-acter of the prayers and
observances and the sanctity evidently attached to the
recurring seventh day, some connection with the Sabbath,
or Seventh of the Hebrew Heptamerou." ^

Witness also the following :

"Whoever listens to the story of Prahlada is immedi-

1 IT. H. Wilson, A. M., F. R. S., Professor of Sanscrit, Oxford,
Works, vol. 2, of Essays on the Religion of the Hindus, pp. 198 —
201.

ORIGIN OF THE WEEK. 107

ately cleansed from his sins ; the iniquities that he com-
mits by night or by clay, shall be expiated by once hearing,
or once reading the history of Prahlada. The perusal
of this history on the day of full moon, of new moon, or
on the eighth or twelfth day of the lunation shall yield
fruit equal to the gift of a cow," [/. e., a great gift].
Note. "The days of full and new moon are sacred
with all sects of Hindus." ^

In Sacred Books of the East (Max Muller) vol. 2,
p. 85, we find fa:>ting on full and new moon, as
a penance i'oi' sin. In vol. 5, p. 406, Mr. Muller
says-:

" The first weekly period begins with a day dedicated
to Anharmazd, and called by his own name ; and each
of the three other weekly periods also begins with a day
dedicated to Anharmazd, but called by the name of Din,
religion, with the name of the following day added as a
cognomen. The first week therefore consists of the day
of Anharmazd, followed by six days named after the six
archangels, respectively. The second week consists of the
day Din-with-ataro, followed by six days named after the
angels of fire water, the sun, the moon. Mercury, and the
primeval ox. The third week consists of the day Din-
with-Mitro, followed by seven da^^s named after the angels
of solar light, obedience and justice, the guardian spirits
and the angels of victory, pleasure and wind. And the
fourth week consists of the day Din-with-Dino, followed
by seven da3''s named after the angels of religion, right-

1 Vishnu Parana, chap. 20, Wilson's Trans.

108 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

eousness, rectitude, the sky, the earth, the liturgy, and
the fixed stars."

Here we have the week, with the days named in
order though the month, and two weeks of eight
days to meet the intercalary difficulty. It is the
Hebrew week, modified by the astronomical element.
The Sabbatic division of the Buddhist week is also
seen by the following, which dates from the 4th cen-
tury B. C. :

" In the first place, Ananda, when the Great King of
Glory, on the Sabbath-day, on the day of the full moon,
had purified himself, and had gone up into the upper story
of his palace to keep tlie sacred day, there then appeared
to him the heavenly ' Treasure of the Wheel,' with its
nave, its tire, and all its spokes complete.

" When he beheld it, the Great King of Glory thought :
This saying have I heard ; when a king of the warrior
race, an anointed king, has purified himself on the Sab-
bath-day, on the day of full moon, and has gone up into
the upper story of his palace to keep the sacred day, if
there appear to him the heavenly ' Treasure of the Wheel,'
. . . that king becomes a king of kings invincible."

In foot-notes we have the following :

"1. Uposatha is the name for the sacred day of
the moon's changes — first and more especially the full-
moon day ; next the new-moon day ; and lastly the
days equidistant between these two. It was therefore a
weekly sacred day, and as Childers says : may often be

ORIGIN OF THE WEEK. 109

well rendered Sabbath." "2. Uposatha, a weekly sacred
day ; being fnll-moon day, new-moon day, and two equi-
distant intermediate days." ^

Concerning the origin of the week, Max Muller
says :

" It is well known that the names of the seven days of
the week are derived from the names of the planets, and
it is equally well known that in Europe the system of
weeks and week days is comparatively of very modern
origin. It was not a Greek, nor a Roman, nor a Hindu,
but a Jewish or Babylonian invention."-

The following, corresponds with Mr. MuUer's
conclusions, and with the facts already presented :

" Throughout all the nations of the ancient world the
planets are to be found appropriated to the days of the
week. The seven-day cycle with each day named after a
planet, and universally the same day allotted to the same
planet in all the nations of the world, constitute the first
proof and leave no room to doubt that one system must
have prevailed over the whole." ^

CHIXA.

The knowledge of the week was transferred through
India to China, as is shown by the following :

"These planets with the sun and moon, form the

1 Buddhist Suttas, Sacred Books of the East, vol. 12, pp. 251, 254.

2 Chips from a German Workshop, vol. 5, p. 116.
^Godfry Higgin's Anaclypsis, Book 1, chap. 1 sec. 5.

110 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

' seven bright celestial objects.' They constitute the
mythological week of seven days, which sprang up in
Babylonia and spread to India, and also through Europe,
in the da^^s of the Koman P^mpire."

" Some Chinese ahnanacs call Sunday the day of Mrit,
the ' Persian Mithras, a name for the sun."
... In the ' Peacock Sutra ' the days of the week are
also given." i

It is befitting to close this line of testimony by
the following from high authority, which has been
translated especially for this chapter. President
Goguet of France, speaking of the week, says :

" We find from time immemorial, the use of this period
among all nations without any variation in the form of it.
The Israelites, Assyrians, Egyptians, Indians, Arabians,
and, in a word, all the nations of the Orient, have, in all
ages, made use of a week of seven days. We find the same
custom among the ancient Romans, Gauls, Britons, Ger-
mans, the nations of the North, and America. Many
vain conjectures have been formed concerning the reason
and motives which determined all mankind to agree in this
primitive division of time ; but it is evident that the
tradition concerning the length of time employed in the
creation of the world has given rise to this usage, uni-
versal and immemorial, which originally divided the week
into seven days." -

1 Chinose Buddhism, by Joseph Edkins, D. D., p. 211. Tubners
Oriental Seiies.

2De L'Origlne Des Loix, Des Arts, et Des Sciences, (Origin Of
Laws, etc.,)— Vol. 1, Book chap. 2, p. 217, Paris, 1758.

ORIGIN OF THE WEEK. Ill

The following conclusions are inevitable from the
foreo^oino^ facts :

1. The week of seven days is one of the older if
not the oldest of the universal institutions of human
society.

2. The original week of the Accadians and other
Asiatic nations is identical with the Ancient week of
the Hebrews, which is shown to have existed previ-
ously to the enslavement in Egypt, by the pre-Mosaic
history, as given in the Old Testament — see Gen.
ii. 2 ; vii. 4 ; viii. 10, 12. It also appears in the ob-
servance of the Sabbath before the giving of the
Decalogue. See Ex. xvi. The seventh day of the
Accadian and Babylonian week was a " day of rest,"
and was identical with the Sabbath. This indicates
a primeval and universal Revelation concerning the
Sabbath, which, combined with the astronomical
element, gave the universal week.

3. The original Hebrew week has been kept intact
until the present time. All the theories concerning
Sunday as related to the Sal)bath question are based
upon the fact that it is the first day of the Hebrew
loeeh.^ This identity of the ancient and modern week
shows that the Sabbath and the week are both much
older than Judaism. Certain writers are very per-
sistent in claiming that the order of the week has

112 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

been broken up by changes that have taken phice in
the civil calendar, and that the identity of the days of
the week cannot be preserved, because of variations
in longitude. To meet these objections we add the
following facts :

European countries borrowed their calendar from
the Romans. In the pre-historic period, under
Romulus, the year is said to have been divided into
ten months, aggregating 304 days. How the other
days w^ere disposed of is not known. Numa Pom-
pilius, the second king of Rome, added two months,
January at the beginning, and February at the end
of the 3^ear. About 450 B. C, under the Decem-
virs, February was taken from the end of the year,
and placed next after January. Under this arrange-
ment the month was made to consist of 29 and 30
days, alternately, to accord wdth the lunar changes,
giving a sum total of 354 days in the year ; one day
was added to this to make the number more " fortu-
nate." This lunar year was found to be less than
the solar year by at least ten days. To remedy this,
Numa added an intercalary month once in tw^o years,
of 22 and 23 days alternately, thus giving 1, 46^ days
in four years, or an average of 366| days in a year.
Complete harmony between the lunsir and the civil
year was not yet attained, and hence it was ordered

ORIGIN OF THE WEEK. 113

that every third period of eight years should have
only three intercalary months of 22 days each. This
gave an average year of 365i days. The regulating
of the calendar thus established was left to the Pon-
tiffs, who made political capital by intercalating
irregularly, so as to affect the elections, and other
events, until in the time of Julius Caesar the differ-
ence between the civil and the lunar year amounted
to three months ; autumn came in summer, and
winter came in autumn. To remedy this, Julius
abolished the lunar year, and attempted to harmonize
the civil year and the solar by the following method.
He fixed the civil year at three hundred and sixty-
five and one fourth days, every fourth year having
three hundred and sixty-six. The first Julian year
was reckoned from Jan. 1, 46 B. C. ; our civil calen-
dar begins at that point. In this rearrangement
under Julius, January, March, May, July, Septem-
ber, and November each had thirty-one days ; the
rest had thirty each, except February, which had
twenty-nine, with an added day every fourth year.
When Augustus became emperor, he demanded that
his month, August, should have as many days as
July, the month of Julius ; hence a day was taken
from February and given to August ; then, that three
months of thirty-one days each might not succeed
8

114 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

each other, September and November were reduced
to thirty days, each, and October and December
were increased to thirty-one. On such childish
grounds were some of the changes made.

These changes did not remove all trouble. Astro-
nomical science was not then able to measure the
solar year accurately, and the civil year was ac-
cepted as ])eing eleven minutes and fourteen seconds
too long. It was even more than this, and in a few
centuries the vernal equinox shifted from the twenty-
fifth to the eleventh of March. In 1582, Pope Greg-
ory XIII. sought to correct this error by dropping
ten days from the civil calendar. Gregory also
ordered that the intercalation of one day in each
year divisible by four should extend to the centurial
years, as well as others. Such have been the changes
in the calendar. They have all been made to harmo-
nize the civil year with the solar year. Not one of
them has touched the week. Every one knows that
the addition of one day each leap year does not affect
the week.

LONGITUDE.

In the matter of longitude, the case is simple when
not complicated hy erroneous conceptions. The days
travel around the earth, as a ship or a man does,

OEIGIN OF THE WEEK. 115

retaining their identity and reaching each degree of
longitude in due time. As a simple illustration, take
the following : Richard Do^ starts from New York to
go westward, on the 11th day of August 1884, at
sunrise. The man and the day leave New York
together. But the day outruns the man, and reaches
Chicago in an hour, while Doe comes in much later.
No one complained of the day because it did not
reach Chicago at the same hour it did New York.
The day could not be in New York and Chicago at
the same time any more than the man could. When
the day did reach Chicago or San Francisco, every-
body hailed it as the 11th day of August, the identi-
cal day that it was in New York, just as Doe's friends
hailed him on his arrival. No day exists at a given
degree of longitude until it reaches that point. In
the case supposed the day was the 224th of the year,
the 11th of the month, and the 2d of the week. This
identity was retained in all its course, at Chicago,
Omaha, etc. It will be seen by this illustration that
the identity of each day is kept as certainly as the
identity of a man is retained. If the loss of identity
could occur in the case of the Sabbath, it would oc-
cur equally with every other day in the week the
month, or the year. No such disorder is ever sus-
pected in social, or business life. No hint of such

116 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

disorder is heard except in connection with the Sab-
bath question, and then only as a means of breaking
the force of the truth thj^t the seventh day of each
week in its regular succession is the Sabbath. Com-
merce and science have agreed to correct the discrep-
ancy which occurs when the circle of the earth is com-
pleted in circumnavigation, by fixing the " Day line "
at a given point in the Pacific ocean, where the
movements of the circumnavigator and of the sun
are made to harmonize.

Have the week and the Sahhath come to us in reg-
ular succession^ and in unbroken order?

The Sabl^ath measures the week in all Biblical
history. The week is fully recognized during the
Patriarchal period, previous to the giving of the law,
(See Gen. vii. 10, and xix. 27,) and when the law
was given (Ex. xx.) God connected the Sabbath
directly with his own example at the close of the
creative week. It is hence legitimate to conclude
that the Sal)bath measured the week before the
giving of the law, as it did after.

It is impossible to believe that God deceived the
Israelites at Sinai, by founding the Sabbath on his
own example, and then designating a day not in the
reguhir order from the Adamic Sabbath. It would
have been sheer deception thus to do. The Sabbath

ORIGIN or THE WEEK. 117

law rested on a false foundation from the beg-innincr,
if the day designated in the law was not the true one,
and God was the immediate author of the cheat.
The proposition destroys itself.

From the olivine: of the law at Sinai to the comino^
of Christ, the Israelites retained the Sabbath in
unbroken order ; their history has no trace of con-
fusion on this point. From the time of Christ to
the present, the Jews, scattered in all lands, have
maintained the observance of the Sabbath, with the
same unbroken regularity. Thus we have a con-
tinuous chain from the present date to Sinai, and
thence to Creation, through a people whose tenacity
of national life, manners and customs, has been the
wonder of the centuries. This preservation of the
historic Sabbath of Jehovah is not the least impor-
tant part of their wondrous mission and unfulfilled
work.

Christ, who is the center of all dispensations,
recognized the Sabbath as a part of his Father's law
and pruned it that it might bring forth more and
better fruit.

Since the middle of the second century of the
Christian era, the first, third, fourth and sixth days
of this same Aveek, measured by this same Sabbath,
have been observed to commemorate certain events,

118 SABBATH AKD SUNDAY.

said to have occurred on these days of the week.
During all this time, no lover of the Wednesday or
the Friday fast, or of the Sunday festival, has ever
doubted that he was observing these days in their
regular weekly order and succession.

To sunniiarize, we have the following proofs : At
Sinai, God gave the Sabbath law and designated a
day, which he founded upon his own example, thus
linking it with the "Adamic Sabbath." That day
in its regular order, the Jews still keep. For the
last sixteen hundred years, Wednesday, Friday, and
Sunday, have been observed in some form, in their
weekly order, by so many persons as to make it im-
possible for any disturbance to take place in the
calendar of the week, without leaving traces on
almost every page of the history of the church.

These facts give all needful logical and historical
support to the claim that the seventh day of the
week, improperly called " Saturday," is the Sabbath
of Jehovah, in regular succession from the hour
when the mornini>' stars sans; to«:ether and the Sons
of God shouted for joy.

APPEXDIX B.

THE IDEXTITY OF THE WEEK.

The facts which appear in Appendix A, furnish
abundant proof of the identity, as well as of the
origin of the week. But there are many excellent
people who are confused by the foolish cavilling of
those who say, " no one can tell which is the hrst,
or the last day of the week" ; hence we seek to
make assurance doubly sure, by another group of
facts.

Philology is a department of history. Language
is embalmed thought, and is unerring testimony con-
cerning the habits of men in all ages. Names are
amono^ the endurins^ elements of lano'uaoe. The
existence of the name of a given thing is proof
that the thing existed as early, or earlier 'than the
name. Thus a " dead language " preserves the his-
tory of the people who have passed away. Nautical
terms in a language show that it belonged to a sea-
faring race. If a language be filled with the names
of agricultural implements, we know that those who

119

120 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

spoke it were tillers of the soil, even though the
land they inhabited be now a desert. Under this
universal law of philology, the following pages show
that the identity of the week, in its present order,
is beyond question.

We are indebted to the Eev. William M. Jones,
D. D., editor of the Sabbath Memorial^ 56 Mildniay
Park, London N., England, for the privilege of ex-
tracting from " The Table of Days," first published
by him in 1880, and reissued, revised and enlarged,
in 1886. Mr. Jones was for many years a resident
of Palestine, is a linguist of no mean ability, and
has laid other distinguished pens under contribu-
tion to aid in his w^ork. We gladly subjoin certain
acknowledgments which appear in the preface to the
first edition of the Table :

"The third, fom-th, and fifth numbers of this journal
contained a " Table of Days" in twenty-six languages.
Whilst preparing an enlarged edition of this important
work, we 'had collected the names of the days in fifty
languages, when that eminent philologist, Prince Louis-
Lucien Bonaparte, kindly offered to furnish the days of
the week in all the European languages, the latter being
properly classified by him. In doing this the Prince has
rendered us and our Sabbath-keeping friends an impor-
tant service, w^hich will long be remembered. We learn

IDENTITY OF THE WEEK. 121

from him that there are 104 dialects distributed among,
and dependent upon, the fifty-two languages given in the
Table. The reader will find the table prepared by the
Prince, of special interest.

For the Assyrian text and the Targum of Onkelos we
are indebted to Mr. E. A. Budge, whose articles on Assy-
rian archaeology are valuable contributions to our paper.

Our thanks are due to the Rev. Dr. L. Loewe for the
Circassian list of days, which he heard from the mouths
of the natives themselves, and for valuable remarks which
will be found in the Notes.

Thanks are also due to the Rev. Albert Lowy for state-
ments respecting the Hebrew and the Targum dialect ; to
the editor of the Jewish Clironide for confirmation of
certain Jewish customs ; and to Dr. Birch of the British
Museum for assistance in the Coptic.

Much valuable aid has been rendered in our Armenian
studies by Mr. Krikor H. Shahinian, of Amasia, Asia
Minor, formerly a student of the American College,
Constantinople ; and further confirmation of matters in
our researches in Arabian literature has been given by
Mr. N. Giamaal, of Acre, Palestine, a Syrian acquaint-
ance of former years."

1. It will be seen that the Oriental conception of
the Sabbath makes it the chief or supporting day.
All other days lean on it ; all proceed towards it.
^ 2. Note that Samstag Saniedi, Sabbato, etc., are
the exact counterpart of Sabbath, and not of Satur-
day.

122 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

3. The follo^Ying from the pen of Doctor Jones,
to the writer is worth repeating :

"In Malagasy, Japanese, the languages of the Cau-
casus, of eastern Kurdistan, Thibet, Burmah ; in west and
east Africa, and central also, in the fifty-two European
languages and nearly four hundred dependent dialects,
we have a complete chronological account of the sacred
seven days, from the earliest historic times. Man has
tampered with the year and with the months, but he has
never been anxious to change the week from seven to any
other number ; and whatever attempt has been made in
that dh-ection, has signally failed. Protestantism has
attempted a change of the Sabbath, but that said attempt
is of puny man, the Table of Days is a swift witness.
The uses of these languages in all ages and countries are
in accord and therefore admit of no contradiction. They
speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth."

We have the right to ask a careful study of the
question of the origin and identit}^ of the week, by
every reader. It is an important element in the
Sabbath controversy. The facts which are here set
forth, are a complete answer to the claim that the
Sabbath and the week began with the Hebrew nation
and the legislation of Moses. These facts answer
with equal positiveness the still more visionar}^ notion
that the Sal)bath was changed at the exodus of the
Israelites from Egypt, and that hence, the first day

IDENTITY OF THE WEEK. 123

of the week is the original seventh da3^ These facts
also show that " The Sabbath " is the definite proper
name of a specific day of the week ; and hence that
it is futile to assert that "The Sabbath," and "A
Sabbath" are equivalents, or that the Sabbath is any
one day of the week which the choice of man may
indicate. The facts herein set forth, form a perma-
neiit barrier against all similar theories, and hold us
down to the one truth of the ages, and of the fourth
commandment : " The seventh day is the Sabbath of
the Lord thy God."

We have selected representative languages from
the different families, modifying the family arrange-
ment somewhat under the head of Japhetic Group,
in order to retain a certain important geographical
connection among the European languages.

Those who desire to pursue this line of investiga-
tion further are referred to the Chart by Dr. Jones,
which gives about twice the number of languages
for which we have space, and prints each in its
native text.

124

SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

hash-

Vi-i.

he 7lh

hash-
bath,
•the
bath.

l°l

-met
-bat
.lesh.
Sab-
Day.

yom
she-
Day t

yom
shab
Daj
Sab

2«

^5 A >>5

yoy-met a-

roy-ta.

Day of Eve

(of Sab-

bath.)

6 v-N

tei

M.i

•"IE

ill

72 'J^

ill

yov-met
kham-sliu-

sheb.
Day 5th of
the Seven.

kham-sho
))e-shab-bo.
Five into

Sabbath.

-^1

::::'/3

yoy-met
ar-bu-sheb.
Day 4th of
the Seven.

ar-lja-oh be-
shab-bo.

Four into
Sabbath.

^ t

5.^

a ^

0^ .3 •

-= 0 2^

-? CO

liil

1 S

7.-^

^ial

•i-g"^

'S •

**5

.3 .':;

i«

2"^

5-^

r-t

*>>

2 ^

S q3

khad be-

shab-bo.

One into

Sabbath.

J= OS

C rt

o 2 >>o

l«

O (»

^5 (^1

0 0)

03 a
7i9

?§

Ill

Targum
Dialect of
the Jews in
Kurdistan.

1^^

SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 125

+^5

II
11

ini San-
bat,
le Sab
bath.

"So O c8

>. p

«(»

2i| .

i :5

e3^^

ill

^g5

05X3

0) eS(^

£:=>.
n

.^^^

3?»

:e=^2 .

e3 .d

rl A

m-sh

ab-b

bath

1l"^

?2^

§1

kha
be-sh
Five

Sab

d&H

ar-ba be-

shab-ba.

Four into

Sabbath.

^.5

■§5
2^

i1
^1

-la-tha be-
sliab-ba.
liree into
Sabbath.

t i

i i

S H

>> p

=3 H

be-
-ba.
into
ath.

CO 03

fl^ rQ

fl CK

i^^

khad be-
shab-ba.

One into
Sabbath,

-So
"3^

. ^

yu-m:it
shap-tu.
ays into
Sabbath.

al-as-bu.
1. jum-at
he Seven
Col. (of
days).

. O CI
S o
CO t--^

ill

esH

■O'oS

126

SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

pi ehoou
emmah z
shashaf.
The 7th
Day or
Pi Sab-
baton.

San-ba ta
Tenna.
Little Sab-
bath.

Hor ap At-hor.
Sheta. Venus.
Jupiter.

pi ehoou
emmah—

so-ou.
The 6th

Day.

pi ehoou
emmah e

tiou.
The 5th

Day.

lit

pi ehoou
emmah d

ftou.

The 4th

Day.

ill

1— I

(Hor going

baclv-

wards).

Mars.

pi clioou

emmah g

shomt.

The 3d

Day.

Hu-tshi-la
ma-fa.

2d Trade
Day.

•<
1

'' i '•

III

pi ehoou

emmah 6

snau.

The 2d

Day.

Hu-tshi

Dura.

1st Trade

Day.

[

1— (

pi ehoou

emmah. o.

ouai.

The 1st

Day.

Sanbata
Gudda.
Festival
Sabbath.

pi anan, z.
A period of
time be-
longing to
the Sab-
bath.

ii
II

Coptic.
Egypt.

Shukra
var.

Venus'
Star.

'^ ,

Q. . U

CS ^4 .

Brihus

ti-var

Jupita

day.

'^h .

3 « M

•^ >i

u >^

>r3

rt 3

> c3

3'?

g a

fi c

3 3

S^^

cac»

•S s

d <o

is;

3 ^

^«^

w=«

SABBATH AXD SUNDAY.

127

S3 .

c»

>»

,1^

33 00

•2g

cj 2

CO -; !-( O -rS

2 o_£^

^•1

a w QD

©a, c3

o o

35 c3 O -M fe 'C

fifcc

^ > S ^ & 2

ceco

1=^

S~ 3 J-a.. >.

Bisbiissi

a^.

128

SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

yom-es-

sabt.
Day the
Sabbatn.

^•^

3 .

!2ti

*•"> 03 "^-

•=

ill • |si

«5a^ "^SoiS «^«i 5»=^

""^ '-' a ;3 M

fi-^SS =iS5^ ^'^sig «QO

-5 2 2^

ScjOs 3tjci .o-F^k-^i'

^^Bi -SI a; J IIP

o ^

3 2 '«^^ leg

^3'5>

^ s • 08 m si c-^

SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

129

B^u^ .2

Sfl 2.2S

> ^ S '^

^>;

o ^ ^

s 'J

Wffl

130

SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

iil

III

Kos-nunal

Diy-clay

(day ivith-

out work)

Sum at.

Kuks-

ketsha.

Dry-Day.

(day with-

iosS

bB.^

S .03

•^

sTcJ

l6^

r
=?

02^

jjj?

eS ,i

O >

.2 s a

"5"

rr" «

"A "

»5

c»

tsj

.2 a

V o

ffi

rTO

-2^

§:"

-o

§<fl

^11

>«

5:5

C 3

r- ^

5.2

31
Is

SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 131

:3 I J

fl s ^ -s

-i^

^§3

S -d

^ Q q

Q Q Q

13 fl

-^ 'S 5 a

P 3 :;3 2

^ "3 ^

»* ^^ o kL Q

S 2 S

S,5? sc'^ "Sc? -Sm 'a

Sbc ^^ 2-2 »o8 g?'^

|« ^i »S

132

SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

7. CO

Sabbatum,

Dies Sa^

urni

Sabbath,

day of Sat>

urn.

^ a;

d ^P"

> .22

>■ N N

'•vt

O
»-5

3 ^

a» .5

«'
^

<P 3

^■^

£'^

CO G

.Si

■I -M i

Q-

CO 2

•-3

0^ es

l|l

.S3

pqpH

q^<

S^O

M 03

ill

o'2

%'i

"Si

5 s

.Q-Q

03 sJ

0202

m
©
fl

SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 133

Ir la" «|o| II

o 1 o « -g-g §

o I

S a

.s^-s

N S ^5
0) a)

S S

S 5 I S

i-M /^ CO ^ ,:)

P^ 1 _

<ri ! .ii §) ^ -§ 5f So .2

*7 : s I s i i S s

0 Q b 5 r^ «

« 5 = a cs=i

|m ft^ Oh boo g£ p.a^ gs5=^> |S-

134

SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

<g ^^^ ^.p^ pcc'

^ 3 - cc cc^« ".y, c- ^ «

0) 00 ;h

§88 s =

I. I Is

|S I It

a
csbo

h h

(» rr,

0) O *> o S —

o o «^ o -3 o

'►T" O f3 QJ !i, O

SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

135

1-^

coco

Siiiund

Corrujition

of Son-

nabend.

§■5

Laugarda-

(Of-bath-
day).

fco

cc bo

bo
9

-§

■5 S2

S bo

■a

^
g
&

a>>

> §1

^'^

a
Q

h-{

a u)

ffi

PiH

<t1

^3
a*

[

(»

1— 1

.3 3£

is
II

136 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

<S.S9hO^< SXi ^^ c*J3 eS^ $J= CJ-2

O S3

£7

?ii

.^^

,i«l
-j

•^^

^
h
_>

■SI

'•^M

p-i

11^

>•

03
0)

HH'^

•si 11^ ii 1^.? ^/|| -s-^ ^^ ft

a| ir^ts^i |«t^ Il ^£ II

SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 137

c
o
O

(In

S eg

+3 c3

111

''^■9.

-^•2

jn^

eS^

'CJi ^

c-S

3-5

=3^

xjS

w+S ^

02 "

(» «5

(» cS

cS :3

« «.

"■^cc

«^

«>;«^

■ C4

«3

1'^

"3 to

-5

-c-a ca

PLH

PhOh^

3^1
5?

;2i

•^i
§•2.

¥1^^

'55

^-1

•3 a

lit

5 M «

1-^.?

^S^

00 .rH
CO 03

il-

3 Oj

A S^

©PQ 3

t^s

'^m-

3fe3

1-5 ^P3

138

SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

«4-i a>
o -

K^ a;

^ O

^ .2

o rt

H ^ M
P

-4-1

'"'

r^,

r/3

-^ C'

be -^ '^^

7i <^

S ^ I *

d rt
:- y.

i>3

fv, t>J

^ '^ .'. '^

i^ '6 Si: a

72 S

0^ ;=: ^
8^

^ ^ 7^

r- .^^ 1^

.- ci ^

c5 ""^

CD T-s

o C

i i

72 ^

-a

. <x>

^ 3

O a ^

o ':^' "*^ ;3

bD
p

r-^ jp !X> '^

o
cw

-*j

-a

f-H

«4-l

' *

'"'

V
o

'«

-—

«*-!

-ij

c3
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IDENTITY OF THE WEEK. 139

The testimony of the seventy-five languages and
dialects, given in the preceding tables, links the
weeks and the Sabbath as they have come to us in an
unbroken chain through the historic period. The na-
tions that spoke many of these languages have long
since gone from the earth. But the words of their
mothejL- tongue embalm their thoughts and practices as
ineifaceable and unmistakable monuments showing the
identity of the week and of the Sabbath. Tides of
emigration have swept hither and thither over the
earth. Empires have risen, flourished, and fallen, but
the iveek has endured, amid all convulsions and
changes. The earth as whirled upon its axis, and
all lono-itudinal difficulties which some men now
assert as against the identity of the days and the
week, have existed since man began his course of
empire over the earth. Humanity has belted the
globe, in its progress, whether from one or from
both ways, it matters not, and ages have failed to
produce that confusion which superficial thinkers
ignorantly assert. In this table of days philology
has done for the truth concerning God's eternal Sab-
bath, what cuneiform inscriptions, and munnny pits,
are doing for general and national history. When
the facts presented in these appendices are given a
fair consideration, cavil must cease, whatever prac-

140 SABBATH AND SUNDAY.

tice as to the Sabbath the reader may continue to
pursue. God's Sabbath, the busy day of modern
life, and the sneered-at relic of Judaism, is here
shown to be one of the great facts in universal his-
tory. Your duty to observe it, hereafter, dear read-
er, must rest upon the light now before you. God
measures our duty by present know^ledge, and not by
past opportunities. May the Lord grant you strength
to follow the way of right and righteousness

GENERAL INDEX.

Page.

Alford, on Matthew xxviii. 1; and on Luke xxiii. 54, 56

A priori argument, 1-^

Brown, Prof. Francis, Sabbath and cuneiform inscriptions, 93

Calendar, European from Roman 112

Calendar, Roman under Numa, 112

Calendar, Roman under Julius, . 113

Calendar, changed by Gregory XIII., 11-4

Chambers' Cyc, origin of the week 98

Change-of-day theory, Illogical, 47

*' '' Propositions examined, 47

Christ, the central point in both dispensations, 23

Christ did not teach the abrogation of the Decalogue, 23

Christ's example concerning the Sabbath, 26

Christ kept Sabbath not simply as a Jew, 33

Christ's example concerning Sunday. 64

Christ, resurrection of, prophecy concerning 50

Christ's resurrection not on Sunday, 59
Christ's crucifixion and entombment, on Fourth day of the

week, 59

Christ rose on the Seventh day of the week, 59
Christ, an impostor, if he did not lie in the grave three days

and three nights, 63

Christ, resurrection of, Matthew's account 53

Christ, resurrection of, Mark's account 53

Christ, resurrection of, Luke's account 52

INDEX.

Page.

Christ, resurrection of, John's account 52
" Collection," at Troas, 2)rivate 81
Covenant, definition of 15
Covenant, word first used, 15
Covenant, deeper meaning of 16
Covenant, under the "new," God's law is written in the heart;
passages referred to, Heb. x. 16; 2 Cor. iii.; Rom. 1st
to 7th chap. 17
Covenant, under the "old," salvation came through ceremo-
nies; under the "nesv," through faith in Christ, 21

Days, table of, great value of 122

Decalogue, the, composed of primary, unchangeable laws, 13

Decalogue, the, basis of the Hebi-ew theocracy 13
Decalogue, the, abrogation of, would destroy the gospel of

Christ, 21

Decalogue, the, was the foundation of both covenants, 21

Edkins, Joseph, Chinese week, 110

Emmaus, Christ's walk to, after his resurrection, 61

Epistles contain only one mention of Sunday, 81

Goguet, Pres., primeval week, 110

Jones, Rev. Wm. M., table of days, etc., 120

Lange, Trans, of John xx. 19—23, 65

Law, definition of 1

Law, piimary, not abrogable 1

Law antedates creation and moral government 1

Law of the Sabbath, primary, 2

Law of the Sabbath, universal and unchangeable, 3

Law of the Sabbath, operative at man's creation, 5

Longitude and the Sabbath, 114

Lord's day, Rev. i. 10. 86

Luke notes customary acts, 74

IXDEX.

Page.

Manna, the gathering of, a test of Sabbath observance, 11

Meyer, on 1 Cor. xvi. 2, 83

Mailer, Prof. Max, Hindu week, etc., 107

No-Sabbathism defined, 36

No-Sabbathisin, claims of, examined, from Old Testament, 37

No-Sabbathism from New Testament, 39

No-Sabbathisra, fruitage of, only evil, 45

No-Sabbathism, passages examined, Deut. v. 2, 3, 15, 37
No-Sabbathism, passages examined, Ex. xx, 2; Lev. xxvi. 13;

Psa. Ixxxi. 9, 10, etc., 38

No-Sabbathism, passages examined, Ptom. xiv. 1—7, 39

No-Sabbathism, passages examined, Rom. vii. 12, 41

No-Sabbathism, passages examined, James ii. 10, 42

No-Sabbathism, passages examined. Col. ii. 16, 17, 42

No-Sabbathisra, passages examined, 2 Cor. iii. 7, 8, 44

No-Sabbathism, passages examined, Rom. v. 13,. 45

No-Sabbatliism makes infidelity better than belief, 45
No-Sabbathism makes rejection of Christ the only means of

sakation, 45

Oppert, on cuneiform inscriptions, 96

Paul teaches the perpetuity of the Decalogue, 25
Paul kept the Sabbath while establishing Christian churches, 27
Pentecost, Acts ii. 1, not on Sunday, 70
Pentecost, why Holy Spirit then given, 72
Philological museum, Saturn's day indentical with the Sab-
bath, 105
Philological ai'gument, importance of 119
Proctor, Prof. R. A., origin of week, etc., 99

Readings, various, on 1 Cor. xvi. 2, • • 81

Reasons for choosing the Seventh day, 2

Rotherham, translation of John xx. 19 — 23, 65

Sabbath idea first expressed in the rest of Jehovah, • 2

Sabbath law and Sabbath-day inseparable, 5

INDEX ,

Page.

Sabbath-day and Seventh-day inseparable, 6
Sabbath institution the result of obedience to the Sabbath

law, 7

Sabbath, known before the giving of the Decalogue, 8

Sabbath law not ceremonial, ]3

Sabbath not "Jewish," 3c

Sabbath mentioned GO times in the Xew Testament, 33

Sabbath Memorial, The 120

Sayce, A. H., Chaldean Sabbath, 96

Smith, C. Geo., Accadian Sabbath, 06

Sunday observance, John xx. 26, (?) 69

Sunday observance in book of Acts, (?) 70

Sunday, Paul traveled on. from Troas, 78

Troas, meeting at, held on evening after the Sabbath, 77

Tyndale, on 1 Cor. xvi. 2, 82

Week, origin of 96

Week, Babylonian 91

Week, Accadian 91

Week, Indian 105

Week, identity of 119

Week, in Semitic languages, 124

AVeek, known to Patriarchs, 10

Week, Hebrew, unbroken as to succession, 90

Week, Chinese 109

Week, in Hamitic languages, 126

Week, in Japhetic languages, 126

Wilson, H. H., origin of the week, 106

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